Hardest of Hearts
by Mmbookworm
Summary: She's the girl without a name; she's you or she could if you're a survivor. He's the odd man out of his group and she's got something he recognizes. There is nothing but silence between them until one silent watch when he pushes the bounds of their silent reverence to coax answers from this familiar stranger only to find more questions than answers. Daryl/OC
1. Safe

Safe

AN: I don't know where this came from. It just wrote itself out on my computer screen. This has the potential to lead into more of story if there is an audience for it. If you want more give a review to let me know what you liked and didn't like and we'll go from there.

_The human heart has hidden treasure, In secret kept, in silence sealed; The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures, whose charms were broken if revealed. _

_~Charlotte Bronte _

Would you ever think that the safest you'd ever feel would be after an apocalypse, well it's the truth. This is the safest I've ever felt, even though nearly everything that goes on two legs is happy to kill you and ravage your body for whatever it wants. Hopefully kill you first, but not always a guarantee, I've found that out the hard way.

But I feel safe because he's here. Well over there, but still. I can see him, he can see me if he looks up. He's across the way picking his way through the scattered underbrush of this little glen we found to bed down in for the night. Looking for a good spot to set up and take the watch he was assigned. Most of them don't like sleeping out under the stars but I don't mind. It also might have something to do with the fact that I sleep in trees; it's a wee bit safer than on the ground, all kinds of predators down there.

I feel safe because he, Daryl Dixon, is here. He's the reason I joined up with these people not too long ago. He found me scavenging in the woods a while back and decided to take me in. Dunno why, I wouldn't pick me. But that's beside the point, he did and so here I am looking across a clearing, filled with people who I'm sure would rather I weren't around; it's not that they're bad people, it's just that I despised small talk before the End and now I think it's absolutely worthless. So as you might imagine I don't know much about any of them and they don't really seem inclined to give it another go at getting to know me.

But he's, I don't know, he's different. There is something about him, something almost shiny under his constant layer of dirt. He's calm and quiet, but mostly he's just there, a constant presence that doesn't waver or change. He also doesn't expect me to be completely normal or anything. I like it; this is certainly a huge change for me considering that for almost this entire time I've been by myself. The other parts I don't like to talk about.

My goodness, where are my manners? I haven't introduced myself, I'm you; well I could be as long as you are a survivor, I am. It's my plan to make that Grim Reaper think twice about coming for me. And if I do say so myself I'm doing a pretty good job. I make people uneasy, always have. I stopped caring when the dead started walking. If you think I'm strange then you don't try to be around me and I have fewer things to worry about. But these people are different, they don't feel comfortable around me but they try, like there must be something redeemable about me.

They know I've got one foot out the door, I'm just waiting for the sign it's going to hell to run. They don't like me because of that fact, I don't care. Or at least I tell myself that I don't. Honestly, it hurts. No I won't abandon them but I'm also not going to stick around if it's obviously going to go the way the War did; if it's time to run, it's time to run. I'm not a coward but I am a survivor.

I do my part to make sure everyone is taken care of, I help hunt, as much as I can but I'm not much of a hunter, I'm more of a healer. I can do a lot with plants, and I do. My bag is full of jars of dried herbs and ointments along with salves to help with bruises and cuts and to relieve pain and itching. I know the best things to use when someone gets sick, I also know where to find all this stuff in the wild. I guess you could call me a medicine woman or something.

I don't care what you call me. There's only one person I allow myself to wish for. I mean I wish for them all but I don't let those wishes get real I guess you could say, for the most part we're all gonna die a not pleasant way. That's the way life is now. We will die young and the best thing you can do is die fighting, and hope that you can get to your insurance policy to stay dead. But I let myself hope for **him, **hope he finds someone to love and lives happily for a while.

Glancing around the campsite, everyone is pretty much curled up safe and as warm as you can get outside after a rain; the chill in the air makes me pull the blanket a little closer around myself, it's an awkward thing to do in a tree but I make it work. Sure you can get away faster if you're on the ground but I'm not really worried about the hordes finding us, I've had my fair share of brushes with other survivors; and only one of them has been sort of pleasant. Take a guess which one I'm talking about.

Hence the trees and my clothing choices, defense and camouflage first everything else can fall away. It's been awhile since they all started grabbing zzzs, I've been up the tree for a bit longer, though I'm not sleeping. I'm listening and watching.

Daryl's on first watch, I'm usually up when he's watching, not because we talk or anything. He just doesn't judge me and the accepting silence is nice. He's silent like he knows what's going on, like he knows why I do what I do. And honestly he might, I don't know much about any of them.

"You can come on down, darlin', ain't a Walker gonna get by while on I'm on watch. You're safe down 'ere" he said glancing up at my perch. I'm tied to the trunk of the tree about ten feet up, my feet just touching the branch below them, supporting just enough weight to keep the blood flowing. Looking down the dying fire light catches his eyes and for a moment they look like quick silver, and I can't help but smile a little bit, I do trust him. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing to go down at least while he's on watch, and then when he grabs zzzs I'll go back to my tree.

Loosening the harness I made for myself months ago after the first incident with survivors I slip down the trunk careful not to make too much noise. Shouldn't wake the others, they are all worried and wrapped up in their own little worlds and need their sleep. It's another thing that sets me apart; I stopped really caring about the world ending and trying to make something that resembled the life I had before. None of it really matters any more. It's over and gone.

"Why do you sleep up 'dere, darlin'?" Daryl asked as I picked my way across the camp to his position watching the natural entrance to the glen we're camped in tonight.

"Safety." I say simply looking for a place to sit close to him, I don't want to wake the others or put us in danger from speaking too loudly. There are two place I could sit one is next to him with my back against the tree he's leaning on and the other is with my back to black woods, hmmm decisions to make.

"Mmmm, I guess that makes sense," he said thoughtfully as I settled with my back to the woods, I don't know him well enough to sit next him. We'll see if we live long enough for that to happen.

"Not much can get you up a tree." I say turning my head to catch the sounds of the forest behind me. My instincts will perk if something changes in the sounds. They're honed really sharp by now.

"True, but yah can get further away faster if yer on the ground." His eyes piercing mine as if hoping mine give away some hint as to why I don't sleep on the ground. The truth is that I've already given away why I don't sleep on the ground. The truth is there in my movements, my behavior.

"I just feel safer in trees." I say, I don't really want to get into why I stopped doing what my ancestors have done for hundreds of thousands of years. It's a period of my survival I'd rather not remember.

"Alright darlin' I won't push yah." His eyes glance down and watch as I pull my legs up to my chest and wrap my arms around them. "Yah know you're safe, right? Non's gonna hurt yah." He's trying to make me feel better, but that's a promise no one can keep. Life took a sudden turn back to hard and short when the dead woke up and started walking.

"I know, some days it just feels surreal. I mean I was studying anthropology, natural medicine and botany and now I'm sleeping in trees using what I know to survive." I can't keep the hopelessness or tears from my voice.

"So anthropology, natural medicine and botany taught you how to use those?" he asked incredulously nodding towards my weapons, the stilettos bound to my writs with their quick release, the bone knife at my hip; he knows I have a garrot wire in my pocket, the handles stick out just a bit so I don't get poked and the only one not visible was the short bow that I can assemble in less than a minute currently resting in the small of my back under my shirt.

"No a morbid fascination with the Vikings and the Middle Ages did. My parents were okay with the archery, thought I could get a scholarship on it maybe. The close quarters combat with knives, not so much, but I didn't give them much choice. I learned it on my own." A wistful smile crossing my lips as I thought back to how much fun I thought it would be to drive my parents mad this stuff. It never occurred to me that it might save my life one day.

"Mmmm," he says nodding, his eyes holding mine looking for something there. He nods ever so slightly, you might miss it because he also throws his head so the small bit of hair that was close to his eye is flicked from its place. "You're somethin' else you know that?" He asks with a bit of smile.

"Yeah, my Grandmother always told me I would never find a good husband. Said that men liked to take care of women. That they didn't want a wife who could throw knives, shoot a bullseye at 500 meters, or any of the other things I can do. She said that women who could do those things found themselves without men in their later years. Said that they wanted a woman to keep a house and all that other bull." I say thinking how ridiculous that notion is now.

"Sounds like your Gran was right proper Southern lady," he says looking away from me. I think I almost see disappointment in his eyes, but that can't be, why would **he** be disappointed that Gran was proper lady.

"Yeah, she was, had her own debutante ball and all in the said that one of Gran's ancestors attended Jefferson Davis' presidential ball in 1861." Remembering my family is something I haven't done in a while. I try not to dwell on the things I can't change, they're gone and dead.

He snorts a bit bringing me back to the present and out of memories of old plantation homes and debutante balls never to be seen again. "What's funny?"

"I just never thought I'd be sitting at a campfire with a right proper lady." He throws me another smile, he can't be flirting with me. I'm the one that doesn't belong here; I'm here to survive and nothing else.

"I'm not a raght lady." I say exaggerating my accent.

He just snorts at me again and reaches out suddenly to grab my hand, "Miss Bell, I really must apologize for mah lack of manners. I've nevar spent any time around a real lady and so I humbly beg your forgiveness for mah shortcomings." Now I know he is flirting with me, though I still don't believe it, despite the fact that it **just** happened.

I snatch my hand away from him and swat his forearm in the process. Hoping for a witty retort to find its way through my lips and I find myself disappointed to hear the words "Mah name 'snot Bell," fall out instead.

"I know it's not but you're a right Southern Bell. So your name's Bell. Least that's what I'm gonna call you tell me yer right name," he scooted closer to me and leaned in real close to my ear and whispered "and you will. One day you will." His breath a warm brush across my pulse causing me to shiver.

As he pulls away I can see the smirk on his lips again like he thinks he gained something from making me shiver. "That doesn't mean anything Mr. Dixon. As for my name, it's just a name and that girl has long since died." The look his face falls and I feel bad, but its true the girl I used to died months ago.

"Why are your eyes are dilated?" He asked looking at me with those quicksilver eyes again, the corners of his mouth turning upwards in a smile "And why you're lookin' at my mouth?"

Smiling I say "My eye are dilated due to several factors, the darkness," I say glancing around the glade "and mostly due to endrophine releases in my brain. It's a specific reaction the body has, it means nothing. Besides you're one to talk. You're eyes have wander over my entire body during this conversation. And most frequently strayed to **my** mouth."

"Maybe I'm just not used to havin' such a beautiful woman for company on watch." He said looking at me.

"I've been here." I say looking at him, it's true I have been here, since joining the group, I've just been up my tree.

"Just up a tree. You still haven't told me why yah do that darlin'."

"Somethings take time, Daryl." I say looking at him. I reach my fingers up to brush the stray hair that's fallen back in his eye away and am shocked to hear him gasp as my fingers brush his skin.

"You're cold, darlin' git over 'ere," he said lifting his arm and indicating the small spot next to him. I'm shocked to find that I want to sit next to him, but life is never so simple, 'specially not this life. He must have been watching indecision and uncertainty flicker over my face and eyes because he continued "Your Vikings wouldn't have thought twice about sharin' warmth."

"Fine, being warm at night would be nice," I concede standing up and stepping over the tree roots to settle in next to him. The bone knife on my hip accessible if need be. My things a short distance away, if anything happened I could be gone before anyone knew a thing.

After I sit down next to him Daryl settled his arm around shoulders and started to rub my upper arm. I guess I was colder than I thought "Why do you care?"

"What did yah say darlin'?" I'm not too surprised he seemed pretty focused on the dark space just ahead of us.

"Why do you care? No one else cares about me, at least not really, they don't trust me. So why do you, Daryl Dixon, care about me?" I say getting more defensive than I meant to but **nothing** in this world is free. And I'm a bit afraid of what his attention is going to cost me.

He took a moment answering my question and he ran the hand that wasn't rubbing my arm through his hair. With a sigh he said "I donn know, I just do. Yah don't seem like yah need protection but at the same time it's like you're lookin' for somethin' or someone you lost. Yah know what I mean darlin'?"

The hand that had been rubbing my shoulder stopped and moved a bit, I waited for what was going to come next; the only thing he did was turn so he could look at me and held my face so I could look into the crystal blue eyes that were pouring out nothing but sincerity. And in that moment I knew I was safe. As long as Daryl Dixon was around I would be safe.

I wasn't even aware that I had started crying until Daryl's thumb wiped away a tear from my cheek. He brought my head down to rest on his shoulder and just sat petting my hair every so often I would catch something he said, I can remember clearly hearing "shhhh, it's alright now.", "Nothing going to git yah." and "You're safe darlin'."

And I was, for the first time since this God-awful mess started I felt truly safe.

AN:Now click that little box down there and give me a review. If you want to read more about Bell and Daryl give me a review to let me know and don't forget to favorite the story to get updates as soon as they are posted! And yes I am aware that Katniss from Hunger Games slept in trees; honestly not a bad policy in life and death situations. Humans have had two feet on the ground for so many hundreds of thousands of years that we forget to look up. Hence why if you're trying to get away, go up whenever possible.


	2. Update Information

Update:

It seems this story line is at least interesting to some people so I will hopefully be updating this story sometime in the next week. I have a vague notion for the next check, just need to work out a few kinks. If anyone has any ideas for a chapter or a direction you would like to see this going in please feel free to let me know.

Also remember to click the follow button so that you can be updated when there is a new chapter!


	3. I don't go Hunting

AN: I'm sorry it's taken so long to get up a next chapter. Life hit and hit hard right after I posted Safe. Short version my step-sister was killed and then I got sick. So here's the next chapter. I had no real idea exactly how I wanted to get where I want to be with this story so I went searching for ideas and this is what I came up with. It's Daryl's perspective, hope you like it.

_Our wounds are often the openings _

_into the best and most _

_beautiful parts of us. _

David Richo

Morning usually sucked, especially more after a rain. Daryl had found that out the hard way when he was a lost child at 8 years old; 16 year old brother in juvie, father, if you could call the prick that, on a bender with a waitress. When he glanced down at the young woman asleep on his shoulder Daryl felt the smallest of smiles creep its way across his face, the innocence in her face as she slept on his shoulder warming his heart in the cool spring morning.

"Mm, Bell hon, wake up," Daryl breathed against her forehead. This had become their ritual, since the first night the nameless girl he called Bell climbed out of her tree and fell asleep on his shoulder her hand on the bone knife at her hip; and in the nights following that first time whenever he had first watch she would climb out of her tree and sit with him sometimes talking, most of the time not, just sitting in the silence of the night. After several nights of silence she had stopped resting her hand on the knife; She was still quite twitchy though, she didn't like being on the ground even though he would rather die than lose another person, and had told her that, if not in words than in his actions.

"Huh," she said sleepily blinking before the moment of panic when her brain registered the ground the beneath her, Daryl always leaned away as her instinct pulled her from the warm cocoon she had been in and her hand flew to her knife. As she observed that there was no danger she relaxed against him once again before smiling apologetically at him.

"There you are," he said with a smile brushing the few strands that had escaped her braid. Doing his best to hide his pain that some part of her, no matter how small, still did not trust him.

"Mm, morning," she said bring a hand up to rub the side of her face before moving to rub the sleep from her eyes. "What time is it?!"

"Shh, little before dawn, no one's up yet," he said shifting to allow her get up to stretch. This happened most mornings; her paranoia at people knowing anything more than the nickname he had given her didn't sit well so she always wanted to be either awake or up in her tree when the others woke up.

A wistful smile crossed his face as he thought that a few months ago someone, Dale, would have caught on immediately or nearly so, to what the two were doing. But Dale was gone, dead, Daryl hadn't really known the man well, but he had been a good man. And now he was another name to remember of people who were no longer alive; just another victim of the disaster. The comfort he found in the memory of Dale was that the man was at peace, not so with some others. Pushing the thoughts from his head he looked at the girl he called Bell she was positioning herself at the base of the tree where she had left her harness getting ready to climb up to it.

"You going back to sleep, hon?" he asked dreading the answer.

"Eh, I'll see how I feel when I get up there. What about you?" Bell asked glancing over her shoulder at Daryl as she prepared to climb the tree to her perch.

"Been thinking I might go look for something edible," Daryl said pushing the thoughts of peace he had felt just moments ago from his mind, as the girl with no name paused in her climb preparations to look over her shoulder at him.

"You want to go hunting?" she asked the ropes in her hands just waiting to return her to the perch where she'd hung her harness. Steadying himself Daryl concentrated on the silence and serenity that the woods had brought him since those days lost in the woods. In his heart Daryl knew she trusted him, that didn't mean that her reluctance to accept that she was safe within their group, with him, didn't hurt. That the only time her eyes weren't guarded and movement didn't hint at her devastated soul were the moments she was settled beneath his arm.

Drawing himself up proudly Daryl proclaimed "I don't go hunting; I go killing." It was the first time he had uttered those words since he'd begun ot make his way towards Atlanta in the hopes of finding people he still couldn't admit were gone, even to himself. The anger and bitterness associated with the truth that the woman who had said those same words, to a younger Daryl Dixon, was long dead and gone came through his voice.

Looking at the girl across the camp he saw her shoulder stiffen at the sound of his voice and watched as she buried her reaction to his tone deep inside her with everything else. Some part of him thought it was good that she was in pain; maybe then she could understand what he felt ever morning she woke thinking he would attack her.

Weeks ago after their first night when he'd had the first watch, he watched as she climbed out of the tree and held his breath until she settled next to him and ask if he wanted company. It was their habit now and he always gave her the space she needed but that didn't mean it didn't wound him when he saw the accusation in her half-conscious eyes that he had impure motives in his mind.

Without a second thought about her Daryl picked up his crossbow and slung a bag with some water in over his shoulder and slipped into the woods. Another thing he had learned in the subsequent visits to the woods, after his introduction to them, was that they were a place of balance and order, the strong and capable killed the weak. And that was what he needed, balance. Nothing made much sense to him much anymore, he needed the solace he found in the woods.

Moving between the branches Daryl breathed in the morning air, savoring the taste of the damp cool air as it filled his mouth and soothed the anguish in his soul. The early morning fog was swirling through the underbrush, his feather light steps created swirling cyclones at his ankles. Taking a moment to bend down and inspect the earth for tracks Daryl felt a sense of nostalgic bitterness that not so long ago the idea of the dead rising up to eat the living was a farfetched as the belief in Gods and it didn't matter a lick to him which ones you were talking about.

He missed the days when going to the woods was tranquil and pleasant, not the means to live by; when the skills he'd developed as a child were hobbies and not perquisites to surviving. Trekking through the woods Daryl was careful to stay within a safe distance to the camp, it was a delicate balance of the greatest distance from the camp so as to find wildlife abundant but not going so far as to be _too far_ from his people.

Walking carefully through the brush as the fog began to dissipate, Daryl froze at the sound of movement in the underbrush. He leveled his crossbow at the bush in the direction the sound had come from. As the hare emerged from the bush across from him Daryl let the bolt fly from the bow. His aim was true and the hare slumped dead on the ground.

A few quick steps and Daryl had the hare gathered up, the bolt removed, and his query stored in the bag. Continuing on through the brush Daryl was unconsciously aware of the time that had passed since he'd left the camp and knew that soon he would need to return, whether he wanted to see the knowing silent forgiveness in her eyes, or not.

Glancing ahead of him in search of danger Daryl noticed a change in the trees ahead about 200 yards distant. Taking a few steps towards the oddity Daryl moved carefully through the brush, they had been tracking herds all winter and there were several moving through the area. As he approached the strange growth pattern Daryl saw that the trees actually stopped for about 8-10 feet. Stepping through the final bit of brush Daryl passed through the tree line into the 9 foot break in the trees and he saw the reason for the break in the trees—railroad tracks.

His curiosity sated Daryl turned back and began making his way back to the group. The ramifications of the tracks echoing through his mind. Railroad tracks tended to lead somewhere and that somewhere had to be better than what they were living in now.

What they were doing was not living, they were surviving, and he wanted to get back to living. He guessed that the girl, whoever she was, had enjoyed living and life at one point too. He didn't want to find a place for her, he wanted to find a place to live. And if she came out of her shell he wouldn't mind seeing who she was. Smart pretty girl from a good family studying anthropology, natural medicine and botany with weapon skills to boot, she sure was something else.

Stunning, shocking, a slap in the face, something to make you stand up just a little straighter. Maybe that's why he liked her. She was Belle. She could survive in the world around them and do it with grace, it was something different. What he'd seen the moment he met her was like one of those moments people talk about, the world stopped.

He knew there was a faint smile on his lips remembering the first time he laid his eyes on Bell. It was a cold morning just at the beginning of winter, frost still crunched under his feet as he looked for any animals late to hibernation. And there she was calmly combing out her hair beside a rekindled fire; his eyes glanced around the glen, a walker shambled towards the girl he would later call Bell. A whistling whoosh broke the morning stillness and the walker fell in true death with an arrow between its eyes.

When he looked back at the young woman she had begun braiding her as though nothing had transpired. And that was what struck him. Over the coming weeks there would be more he'd discover about her. It would be in the way she'd smile at Carol, the silent way she proved to be the person he could trust to defend what was dear to his heart. The way her eyes watched him, the way he watched her. He'd found a kindred spirit, a survivor with a broken soul stitched together.

Stepping between the trees Daryl found the group occupying themselves with morning activities. Lori was bothering Carl about minding his hygiene, as though that were still a top priority with the dead walking. Rick was hovering nearby; Hershel was looking over his family, ordering things.

"Welcome back," Carol said from across the fire from him, he smiled warmly at the woman who reminded him of so many who'd cared for him in his younger days. When Carol smiled he felt as though anything were possible even in this world, the best word for what he felt for her was fondness, she was so caring, she was warm and she was capable in a way not many women he'd known were.

Just beyond Carol's shoulder, at the edge of the camp on the periphery of everything was the young woman who'd been in his thoughts since he'd stormed out of camp. When he met her eyes she gave him a small sad smile. He'd hurt her, he knew, she'd forgive him because deep down she knew.

AN: Hope you liked it. Now please give me a review, click the little box below and let me know what you think. Ideally I'll have number three up in a week to 10 days depending on work load.


	4. Aftermath

_In three words I can sum _

_up everything I've learned _

_about life: it goes on._

_~Robert Frost_

The moment from not an hour prior haunted my thoughts as we stood in the cage. The optimism in the air had been palatable. Hershel was up and moving around the prison. Seeming to promise that we could face anything. That the bleakness and lack of stability were things we left beyond the fence. We might be able to recover and be something resembling what we once were, behind the fences.

Everyone had paused in that moment to savor it. The feeling that we could be. Unconscious of what they were doing my eyes had found Daryl between two fences and 500 yards away. His behavior hadn't change like Rick's did. There was no recognition of me as anything. Why would there be? But there he was, the man who save my life, and that moment we seemed just slightly better. In that moment there was hope, and we all knew it.

But that moment had passed and now we were stunned into silence that seemed deafening after the prison's riot alarm had been shut off. "They must have gotten the alarms shut off." Hershel said in his matter-of-fact way. Beth and I both took a small bit of comfort from this, some things would remain the same. And the way Hershel provided comfort would probably never change.

"I think it might be okay if we got out of here" I said looking between Beth and Hershel, "Just don't go too far from the cage." As we exited the cage they stood on the stoop and watched worriedly as I jumped down and stalked around the corner leading to the back of the yard making sure there weren't any more walkers. Minutes of silence passed until Rick and the others came running out of the prison hoping to find everyone in the yard again.

Rick broke the silence running out of the door to the Tombs "Hershel!"

"You didn't find them?" Hershel asked immediately as everyone halted before the stairs. It was just rick, Daryl, Glenn, and the two prisoners Axel and Oscar.

"We thought maybe they came back out here." Glenn said looking at the worried faces of his family. The desperation we all shared echoed in his voice.

"What about T? Carol?" Hershel asked giving voice to the question we all wanted to ask but didn't have the heart to ask.

And it was Daryl who shook his head and looking at the ground said "They didn't make it." His hand clenched a bit tighter around the scarf she had worn around her head.

"That doesn't mean the others didn't." Rick said desperation in his voice. "Daryl you come with-", he was cut off by the sound of a baby's cry.

The shock was sudden and shattering, perfectly embodied by the baby's cry that informed us of the final cost of the day. In that moment we all lost something more profound than what we lost with Carol or what T-Dog took with him to his savior. Lori took the innocent belief that we could go back. No matter how safe we may one day feel, Lori's death will always be in the minds of those who heard her child's wailing shriek, a reminder that we will never be what we were.

Rick's pleading cries were the first sound uttered and echoed desperately in all our hearts. Unconsciously we all began to move closer together seeking comfort in those that we survived this hell with. Daryl's shoulders remained burdened by his grief at Carol's loss; I was lost in my own shame at having not run after her. We had grown close through the cold months, most especially when the spring thaw threatened not only the ground by also my own heart. It was Carol who smiled as though she had always known.

But somehow he was able to snap out of the shock faster than the rest of us. He went up to Rick almost immediately, and asked "Rick you with me?"

When he didn't get any response, his and everyone's attention quickly turned to the baby we would later call Judith; Hershel asked to look at her and happily declared that despite everything we had been through during the winter she was somehow healthy.

He had worriedly said that she would need formula almost immediately, and in that moment I had kicked myself for not thinking of it and grabbing a can or two after joining them. Surely we had gone through a place that had had some. Looking back I can't believe I so naively believed that the baby would be breast feed, it was the ideal situation for everyone but in this life couldn't be expected.

Daryl immediately stated that we would not lose her or anyone else that day and that he would go on a run. Taking quick steps towards the fence he glanced at me. It's easy to say now that I knew he wanted me to stay and look after everything because of the breach but in those moments the only thing I could hear were the baby's cries. Maggie immediately said she had to go too, and Glenn in his concern for her said he would go too. So I stayed by Hershel, Carl, Beth and the baby; and silently promised that if they weren't okay when the others got back I wouldn't be either. Daryl was right, we couldn't lose another person.

In the end Daryl ended up taking Maggie on the bike; honestly if you had to have a vehicle at least a motorcycle could get through most situations when compared to a car. But it's still depending on limited technology, eventually all the gas in the country will be gone. Honestly it was probably better with two of us there; he went out and began digging the graves we would need and I cleaned out the cell block. And Rick, well he was wherever he was, I think at some point Glenn went off to find him. After I got the Walkers killed in the cellblock I had to get them out and the place cleaned. It wasn't particularly easy but it had to be done.

Axel and Oscar helped get the bodies out the cell block after they spread the walkers outside the fence a bit. After the work was all done the rest of the time passed monotonously slowly. That was what life turned into bursts of boredom interspaced by periods of complete terror. A bit after dark and long after Judith began lamenting her empty stomach we heard the roar of the Triumph coming up the road.

The Triumph had barely stopped before Maggie rushed off the bike and into the cell block. Rushing after her I felt Daryl at my shoulder. As soon as he was in the room with little Judith Daryl scooped her out of her brother's arms and managed to sooth her cries where the rest of us had failed. Maggie and Beth hurriedly mixed a bottle and handed it to the only person who could pacify her cries.

He didn't look at any of us until she took the bottle and began sucking down the formula. The smile on his face when he did was absolutely divine. He looked so proud; and if the man could glow Daryl certainly was. He looked like he had been reintroduced to a side of him that he had thought long lost. Just for a moment.

Just for a moment, we saw a side to Daryl Dixon that he didn't show us; it was only a moment but that moment is precious to me. The man who viciously took out walkers all winter to defend us exposed to us. Sharing a secret about his life before the outbreak. His behavior explained in a moment.

"Okay everyone bed. It's been a long day and we need to get a lot done tomorrow," Hershel said shooing everyone towards the cell block.

"Yeah we'll be heading back to the tower," Glenn said his arm around Maggie as they turned towards the door. His eyes lingered a moment on Daryl and the baby, he was affectionately referring to as Lil' Asskicker. She was going to grow up with quite the vocabulary.

Daryl glanced up from the baby for just a moment, the barest hint of the man who had stood before us a moment only visible in his eyes. "I'll take first watch." His smile warmed my heart and I couldn't stop my own smile from spreading across my face.

"Okay Hershel, let's get your leg checked out." I say ushering him towards the cell block.

"After you Bell," he said gesturing with a crutch towards the block. Acquiescing him I walked into the cell block, with one last look over my shoulder at Daryl. He had returned his attention to the baby who had finished her bottle. He was throwing the red rag over his shoulder to burp her. And that was last image of him I had until I woke later.


	5. Together we Can

Together We can

_Fear is the mind killer_

_~Dune, Frank Herbert _

We're staying." Glenn said simply taking a stand next to Maggie. Rick looked on the positive side of their decision to stay behind and protect our people. On the same hand it was also important to head off the Governor and with five able people at the prison who could shoot, my presence there was not really necessary. Glenn made my decision an easy on, I am after all better in close quarters.

"It's just us?" Daryl asked looking between myself, Michonne, and Rick. The odds weren't great against a militia but we might be able to do it. We would have to play it smart of course but then again they hadn't seemed particularly well trained, we might just be able to pull this off.

The truck was loaded with everything we could possibly need, per usual we each took a small go-pack with extra ammunition for the guns and a bit of dried food that would sustain us if we had to run. After checking my bag I climbed on the back of the bike behind Daryl being careful of the assault rifle slung across his back. As we drove through the woods I thought back to the first time I had climbed on to the back of the Triumph:

"_You sure you want to ride with me?" Daryl had asked smirking at me as he looked up and down my body. "There are no helmets to protect your pretty little head." I couldn't help my eyes from rolling at his statement. _

"_I think there are worse ways to go these days than my brains splattered across the pavement," I said looking up at him from the back of the bike. _

"_What would your mother say if she could see her little girl willingly getting on the back of a redneck's bike?" Daryl asked eyes glinting at me from under the bangs that had grown over the winter. _

"_She'd faint and then curse my Granddaddy for encouraging my unlady like behavior." I said chuckling at the image of my mother fainting in the parlor of the townhouse they stayed in most frequently. Of course that would never happen. My family was dead and if they weren't they were certainly dead to me. My smile faltered at the memories, but by that point Daryl had stepped over the bike and was seated before me and didn't see the change in my mood. _

"_You're gonna want to hold on Bell," he said as he got the bike going. As the speed increased I felt the inertia pulling forward towards his back. For safety sake I wound my arms under his and held on to his shoulders. Since that first ride, I've gotten better at anticipating his movements and only need to loosely hold on to his shoulders. _

As we exit the woods surrounding the prison Daryl perked up a bit from the position he usually has when riding the bike. It's subtle and you probably couldn't tell if you weren't riding with him. When I peered over his should I could see the convoy of trucks that broke into the prison stopped in the road. It would be very smart to anticipate our move to come after them and set up an ambush of sorts. Daryl began slowing the bike a bit.

"Hon, be ready to run for the tree line when we stop." Daryl said over the rumble of the engine. "Get as far from the road as you can and then get low. Take out anyone who comes for you. Get back to the prison and warn everyone." He's giving me instructions as though eh won't be there by my side. He couldn't possibly think that we, he wouldn't make it out.

"We'll both make it back Daryl," I said trying to sound confident that I was right.

"I hope you're right, but you don't wait for anyone. You got that?" I've never heard worry like this in his voice. Daryl, Daryl the man who never showed his emotions. The man who wears a mask and feels his pain alone.

"I've got it Daryl." I do the best in the woods, but leaving these people to be mowed down by this sociopath is not something I want to do. I wonder when that changed, when I first joined I wouldn't have thought twice about leaving these people to their fate.

As we got closer to the parked convoy the less menacing it looked. There were bodies strewn across the ground and some of them looked familiar, I felt Daryl relax a bit. Though I did get the sense that what he said still holds, but I'm not running until there's a reason to. As the bike came to a stop I jumped off so he couldn't accuse me of not doing as he told me.

The moment my feet hit the pavement I watch as Daryl gets off the bike and fits a bolt in his bow. Walking forward we see the faces of the people who attacked us lying on the ground, their friends who have risen are chewing on the bodies of the true dead. We put them down.

As we passed the big truck there was a bang on the window. Rick aimed his gun at the window to take out the walker if it's a threat, but it's a woman. Her hands are on the window and up even as she climbs out through the door Daryl opened.

"Who are you?" Rick demanded of the woman. Michonne moved in to behind the woman, as Rick moves to the side opposite Rick, my position with my back to the field across the road from the convoy has the woman boxed in completely.

"Karen, my name is Karen." She said, panic in her voice, not that I blame her really. It must seem like she escaped some bad shit and now may have found herself in worse for all she knows. But we aren't those kind of people, we don't kill the living.

"What do you want?!" Rick demanded brandishing his gun at the woman named Karen.

"It was the Governor, he just shot everyone. He wanted us to kill you!" She said it like somehow she had believed that they had come to the prison to have tea.

"What happened here?" Rick challenged, his gun was lowered a bit, but really I don't know how much clarification we're going to get here. Honestly it probably went down the way she said, she might have left out a few things I doubt they were direly important.

"We…we,

" she paused a moment and took a deep breath to steady herself and collect her thoughts. "We went to the prison, he told us you were dangerous. That you were going to come to Woodbury and take everything we had, and kill us if we were luck, if not we'd wish you had. He said the only way we would be safe is if we attacked you before you attacked us. And then at the prison," she glanced back towards the woods leading to the prison "we weren't prepared. They only taught us how to shoot nothing else. We ran and he," her voice broke as she looked between the four of us. It seemed that she could not say anything more of what happened, but her eyes glanced around the scene on the road, the truck riddled with bullet holes, the dead bodies, and the blood.

"How many have you killed?"

"I don't know, a few," glancing between the four of us before her and the hard way we all looked she continued "maybe 25 or so, I don't really know."

"Any people?"

There a momentary pause as she glanced at the gun Rick was no longer pointing at her before she answered Rick. "As long as no one died at your prison, just one." Her eyes on the blood-soaked pavement beneath her feet.

"Why?"

"He asked me to." Karen looked up at the gray sky above our heads, signaling the start of winter, her brown eyes were shining and there was agony on her face, well we've all lost things and people important to us.

"Do you know where the Governor went?" Michonne asked her voice no warmer than Rick's.

"I don't know, Johnathan fell on top of me and I didn't move until I was sure he was gone," Karen said as her eyes glanced worriedly around as though he could step out from behind a tree at any moment. Which he theoretically could.

"Is there anyone left at Woodbury?" Rick asked his deep seated concern for innocent human beings coming through.

"Yes it was only those between 13 and 35 without chronic conditions that the Governor took to the prison. Everyone else was left behind," Karen answered, worry in her voice for those left behind. Tyresse and his sister, Sasha stayed behind to protect them just in case."

Rick took a few steps away from Karen, apparently certain she wasn't going to try anything. Daryl and Michonne followed him carefully stepping around Karen. I hung back to ask her if she was injured. As I was approaching I heard them discussing what Karen had told us.

"We need to go to Woodbury and check on the people." Rick said, deep down I think he will always be a Sheriff from a small town; happy to do wellness checks on the people around him.

"What about them?" Michonne asked gesturing to the bodies scattered around the road.

"We burn them" Daryl said glancing in my direction before looking at Karen standing slightly behind me. Rick nodded briefly agreeing it was best not to leave the attractant to the prison. There were still several herds in the area.

"Okay let's get this cleaned up." Rick said looking around "We should probably put them over in this area where there isn't as much grass to clear."

"We can use the cleared grass as kindling." Daryl said taking stock of the area as well. Karen looked a little shocked as we began moving the bodies around with no thought about touching the dead.

Just as we were beginning to light the pyres Karen suddenly spoke up since the questioning stopped "Did Andrea make to the prison?"

"What?!" Rick said quite fiercely, Michonne looked no less dead than Rick's voice sounded.

"She hoped the wall yesterday afternoon going for the prison, or at least that's what Tyresse and Sasha said."

"We need to finish this fast." Rick says looking between all of us.

"As soon as they get going we can leave. If they aren't bunt when come back through we can relight them and completely dispose of the bodies." Daryl said helping to keep a handle on everything that was going on. He really is what Rick needs in times like those. He keeps him focused on the task at hand and makes everything manageable. That is Daryl's specialty, it's why we all love him and need him. He helps us believe that we can do this, that we can make it.

A bullet shattered the tail light on the car that sat abandoned near the front gates of Woodbury rushing towards it Rick lead the way to cover letting fly a string of bullets. We exchanged several rounds of fire with Tyresse and Sasha, the defenders of Woodbury.

After the first volleys died down and without any warning Karen stood up calling out "Tyresse! It's me. Don't—"before Rick pulled her back down out of the line of fire, just in case. In the end though she may have saved our lives, she certainly saved our bullets. By calling out to them she opened dialogue for us.

"Karen? Are you okay?" Tyresse called out the strain in his voice indicated that there was the possibility of something more than simple concern.

"I'm fine," physically speaking yes, she was fine, but mentally; it's a serious question none of us look to closely at anymore.

"Where's the Governor? What happened?" He inquired when she stood up in the dim light of the night sky and the minimal light that reached over the walls and stepped away from the car we were sheltering behind.

"He fired on everyone. He killed them all." Karen called out. The silence that followed seemed to echo around the gates. How shattering it must be to find out that the man you thought was holding a community together was not the paragon you had thought him to be.

"Why are you with them?" Tyresse asked, suspicion was beginning to creep into his voice. It's down to Karen, our lives are in her hands.

"They saved me." Karen said simply. Honestly if the woman had wanted to I'm sure eventually she would have been able to save herself. The human will to live is quite strong, the whole 'where there is a will there is a way' thing. Believe me I know, but I'm not going to correct her not when our lives hang in the balance.

Several moments of silence pass while Rick weighs our options and the possible outcomes in his head before he holstered his weapon and pushed himself up from the ground as he shouted "We're coming out! We're coming out."

A little to my surprise Daryl is the first to stand up from behind the car supporting Rick in what probably could have been a suicidal decision. His eyes glanced at me for a moment and I wondered briefly before standing just behind if he meant for the words he spoke as we approached the tragic convoy at the field to come to my mind. Regardless of his intents, I'm not going anywhere, I owe this man my life, and if he goes down I will go down with him.

As we approach the gates, the swing inward, not the best design for defense at least not against he living. Karen fell into step behind Rick, they were followed by Michonne as Daryl and I stepped from behind the car to join the others.

Once we were within speaking range Tyresse asked "What are you doing here?"

Before he answered Rick looked back down the road, probably remembering his thoughts from before the field. "We were coming to finish this until we saw what the Governor did."

When Tyresse spoke again there was disbelief in his voice "He—he killed them?" He must have seen how the man was unhinging; though perhaps he been around Woodbury long enough to see what it had been like. Not that I know much about it, only what Merle had said. This guy, Tyresse may not have seen enough of how Woodbury had been to get hat their de-facto leader had been coming undone since he learned we had moved into the prison. Guess he didn't like the competition.

While he was dissecting the information he had just received Rick said "Karen told us Andrea hopped the wall going for the prison." He looked intently at the man holding the high-powered rifle "she never made it. She might be here somewhere. Can you help us look?"

"We don't have any idea where he would keep someone like that." The young woman, Sasha, who had been standing silently this entire time, her voice mildly defensive as though Rick was suggesting they knew he had taken he prisoner.

"We weren't exactly in his trusted few." Tyresse said, it seemed he was a peace keeper and the woman was the defender.

"We have an idea of where he might have put her," Rick said taking a step closer to the gates. When the two did not stop him he continued on through heading in the direction that he guessed Andrea may have been held in. Daryl and Michonne followed him glancing down side streets, I think we were all waiting for something to jump out of the shadows at us.

Tyresse and Sasha closed the gate after everyone passed through and followed behind at a small distance from us. As we walked I could hear Tyresse asking Karen how she was doing and what had happened. She pretty much repeated everything she had told us back at the field. Down a side street there was another gate that Rick, Michonne and Daryl walked towards confidently, I supposed this was where they had come to find Glenn and Maggie and later Daryl and Merle.

Passing through the gat we walked through an arena like place and approached a red door into an industrial looking building. At the door Rick paused and looked at Michonne "You don't have to come with us."

"No." She didn't elaborate. That was he style, short and to the point.

When Tyresse caught up with us he said "Karen and Sasha went to go talk to everyone and let them know what happened." Glancing at the door and the slightly menacing interior he asked "What is this place?"

"This is where the Governor held Glenn and Maggie." Rick said answering him as we walked through the tin lined corridor. He went first, then Daryl and Michonne all them with their guns. Michonne I can't fault too much, she primarily uses a sword but guns are good for range.

"The Governor held people here?" Tyresse seemed incredulous. From my place at the rear I can the shocked look on his face. The rose-colored glasses are finally starting to come off in regards to Woodbury.

"Did more than hold 'em." Daryl said, voice tight. I'm sure he's trying not to remember his brother's part in their experiences. We continue through the maze of hallways in silence until we find the corridor that ended in a door. There was a small pool of blood seeping under the door.

Everyone I'm sure was holding out hope, until that moment at least that Andrea was okay; even I was, from what I've heard she was tough. She face this world and spat in it's face.

At the door, which was locked with a paltry sliding bolt Michonne drew her sword and with a determined face she asked "Will you open it?" As Daryl raised his ready to face whatever was behind the door.

Rick placed his hand on the latch and began counting down "One, two…" and he pushed the door open with squeak. What greeted our eyes was the body of young man sprawled halfway between the door and an old dentist-looking chair. As we scanned the rest of what we could see of the room we noticed a pair of feet just inside the door. Michonne was the first to rush in, her sword clattering to floor as we followed her.

The feet belonged to the woman, Andrea, Rick immediately joined Michonne on the floor near their friend while Daryl and I stood near a bit apart.

"I tried to stop them."

"You're burning up." Michonne said, her voice laced with confusion, accusation and concern for her friend.

Sigh with exhaustion Andrea looked down and began pulling aside the collar of her jacket with a wince as the fabric pulled away from the wound. The bite was bad, and there would be no coming back from it. Grief immediately engulfed the room. Rick had to look away. It is obvious that no matter what had happened between Andrea, the Governor and this group she was still very much cared for.

"Judith, Carl, the rest of them?" Andrea asked turning to face Rick more with help from Michonne who moved to support her dear friend. Her priorities were on those she cared and not herself; her fate was already quite decided and it was the living that needed to be cared for.

"Us," Rick says moving in closer to Andrea "us, the rest of us," he finished emotion laced in his voice. It seems once you are part of the group you never stop. Sort of like family I guess, I wouldn't know. I've never known anything so selfless as this group of people.

"Are they alive?" I'm sure rick's words warmed her heart a bit, the knowledge that she was not abandoned by those she'd care about must have been of some comfort.

Before he answered her Rick looked to Daryl. "Yeah they're alive." Rick said trying to sound confident and sure. Not that there was much question. We had left the alive with Glenn, Maggie, Beth and Carol even if the Governor came back, he would have a hell of time getting to everyone.

It seemed that knowing the kids were okay helped out a small bit, Rick smile and so did Andrea before she looked up at Michonne and said "It's good you found them." Grief was beginning to get the better of Michonne, something I'm sure I'd feel if I lost these people. Or at least I hope I would, I don't know if I can feel anymore. With a sigh Andrea says looking at Daryl "No one can make it alone now," her eyes briefly glancing at me standing behind his shoulder.

Standing up a bit straighter he smiles slightly at the dying woman and says "I never could." The moment is tense. None of us want to think about what happens when this conversation comes to an end. We all know, but we don't want to go there.

"I just didn't want anyone to die." Andrea says, she needs Rick to understand why didn't come back. Straightening up a bit she continues "I can do it myself."

"No." Michonne says tear stains already on her cheeks, her eyes haven't left Andrea this entire time.

"I have to." Andrea says looking at Michonne with the same determination I'm sure got her this far in the life we're stuck living now. Her breathing increase as her heart rates up. The body's fight mechanism kicking in facing death. "While I still can." It's an end well need to come to terms with. We're all gonna die and we need to be prepared to take ourselves out. There's so much sadness in the room, we all know she's right. Michonne tried to smile through her tears, but it came out as more a grimace, at least from my angle.

When they broke eye contact Andrea looked to Rick and asked simply "Please?" I don't know whether she was asking Rick to let her die or she was asking for the gun needed to take her life. "I know how the safety works." They share a look, it's an incredibly sad moment even for an outsider like me.

Rick knew she was right, that this had to happen and with a sigh rick handed his revolver to Andrea. Michonne's face twisted in anger and disgust at the gun but this has to happen. We would put her down after, but she wants to take care of it. She wants to take down one more walker, I can respect that.

Michonne sat up a bit straighter looking at her friend and said "Well I'm not going anywhere." There was another long moment of silence, these people take their friends seriously.

"I tried." She said to Rick one more time. And she did, she everything she could to stop this from happening. I had hope that with time she might come back. Andrea had always seemed like she understood this world.

"Yeah," Rick says looking away; I don't think he ever thought he would lose someone like this. "Yeah, you did," Rick said finality in his voice. This was it. One by one we all slipped from the room leaving Michonne with Andrea and the gun. Rick was the last to leave and he closed the door.

A few moments passed in silence before single gunshot rang out behind the tin wall, ti was followed by the metal ring of the casing falling to the floor. A few more moments passed before the door opened and Michonne walked out. Her face was a mask, she did not look at anyone of us. She simply walked out of the room and walked down the corridor away from us. We followed a short way behind, no one looked at each other we simply walked away from the room behind us.

As we exited the building Michonne was standing in the center of the arena, just stopped. Rick didn't stop at the edge with Daryl and I, he just kept walking up to her. Placing a comforting hand on her shoulder we can hear him say "We'll stay here tonight, give you a little time."

As we each passed Michonne it seemed like a funeral receiving line, there were no words of comfort we could give her, but just knowing she's not alone must be a comfort. After we exit the arena-like place rick stopped and looked to Tyresse "When you were at the prison."

He simply shakes his head "It's…" his voice fails a bit but his mean is clear. What happened seems to be water under the bridge "I'm sure we can find a place for you stay tonight." He said looking between Rick, Daryl, and myself.

Glancing momentarily at Michonne still standing numb in the center of the arena alone with her grief Rick began "First, it would be good if we could talk to you, Karen, and Sasha." Rick was concerned about the people of Woodbury. Without the Governor and the men who maintained the walls would these people be okay? Rick couldn't walk away without knowing they would be.

"Sure." Tyresse said nodding his head he began walking in the direction of the gates glancing over his shoulder periodically to make sure we were still following him.

"You want to bring them back to the prison?" Daryl asked disbelievingly.

"We can't leave them here to die." Rick said, always the cop looking out for people.

"They might not want to come," I say stating the obvious "I mean we live in a _prison_. Yes compared to where we came from its pretty good, but they have a _town_." I continue as we walk down the main street. They could conceivably turn this place back into the pretty little Mayberry I've heard it was before the Governor lost his mind.

"Okay this is it. The Governor said this would be the best defensive place if you guys beat them and came to kill everyone. Tyresse said standing by a set of double doors that were at one time painted white. Opening the door he led the way through the building to a back where everyone was waiting. "Karen and Sasha will have told everyone everything by now." He said pausing at the door to the room the remaining townspeople must be sheltering in.

As he opened the door I could see how many people were actually here. It looks like there are 50 people in there. There are 50 people here. I can feel my heart speeding up as my breathing shortens. I'm going into a panic. I don't panic but I can't stop this. My brain is focused on the people! I can't break it. There are people. People! Maybe I've not mentioned this, but I don't like people. Daryl's hand on my shoulder makes me jump, I'm so wrapped up in the 50 faces that seem to be staring at me I hadn't even noticed that he'd stopped beside me. My mind is completely wrapped in layers and layers of panic. Complex thought is not possible, let alone noticing and processing Daryl standing by my side.

I glance up at him as his hand drops from should and see the concern on his face, but his eyes on aren't on me. He's looking at Rick and Tyresse "Go on," Daryl says to them. He doesn't say a word until the door is closed.

"Bell?" his voice is quiet and reminds me of the nighttime conversations we have while everyone else is asleep. My mind is still wrapped in a panic knowing that there are about 50* complete strangers just behind that door. It takes all of my strength and trust in the man beside me to bring my eyes to meet his.

When I manage this seemingly small though nearly impossible act I feel is calm and I know that as long as he is here I am safe, but my panic doesn't subside, the last time I trusted someone to protect me from the strangers I regretted it. Daryl put his hands on my shoulders to turn me towards him, but I'm so wrapped up in my past that I can't, I just can't and push his hands off me and turn my back on him wrapping my arms around my torso.

"Bell?" He asks, he's hurt by my actions I've never pushed him away before. It's the last thing I meant to do but right now I just can't. If I ever get the courage to talk about it he'll understand, hell he might know now, Daryl's a smart guy. There is a brief moment of silence before I am bodily engulfed in his arms my back against his chest, my arms pinned to my torso as he holds me.

"It's okay, I've got you." How can he have me?! My mind begins rebelling against what I know to be true. I know this man would die before he'd hurt me. I know he's not trying anything he just knows that some things are hard to let go of. "I won't let anyone hurt you. You're safe Bell."

I know I'm safe, I know Daryl wouldn't stand silently by. That's the kind of guy he is. He's a knight in rent armor. And if anyone could save me from my past it would be him.

"I know," it's all I can get out, I feel safe here. Right here in this moment, and I don't want it end, I don't want to go back to the world, I don't want to go back to being the girl with no name because it was the only way I could survive. I had to get rid of the person that happened to. I don't want to go back to that. Right now in this moment wrapped in Daryl's arms I feel whole, like this is where I belong.

Daryl and I stay like that for several minutes just breathing; it's nice to know he's not going anywhere and that he will be there for me when I start to feel out of control again.

Taking a deep breath I move my arm slightly so that I can touch his hand and say "I'm better, thank you Daryl. We should probably get in there before they get the idea that something's up," I say and try to smile but I'm sure it didn't come out right.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, I'll live. Just might not be sleeping much till I get used to them." I say looking at Daryl standing before me. How is it that this man can exist? He is such a contradiction. He's cold and distant, and yet he can look at me with such caring in his eyes so much concern over the emotional storm I've been going through since that door opened.

"I think we both know I can calm you down Bell." He smiles that smile that is a smirk, that's joke, that is a secret, that is perfection in a moment. He can calm me down and I know that as long as he is here I am safe.

Bell, it's not my name, certainly not the one I was born to. And for a moment I think of telling him the name my parents gave me on that day. The words are on the tip of my tongue, they're right there I can taste them. But something holds me back and the moment passes.

"Daryl," I say as I step away from him a bit to meet his crystal blue gaze and immediately miss the comfort I have always found in his arms "I would be so lost without you. Thank you, I am eternally indebted to you." The words that I hear coming from my mouth fall so miserably short of what I feel for the man that undoubtedly saved my life by taking me in. One day I hope I will not be so lost in the emotions this man evokes in me and on that day I will be able to adequately say what is actually on my mind.

"You know I'm here when you need me," he says, his eyes don't have that warm glow that they did a minute ago.

"I know Daryl." I say smiling at him missing the warm moment we were in.

He seems mildly resistant to going into that room until he is certain I'm not feeling threatened. "Really Daryl I've just got to burry myself in something and I'll calm down. I know it's not healthy but it's what I need to do until I can let go of what's happened to me," I say reaching for his hand, it's a comforting jester and the only one I can think of that isn't crossing the line we've drawn.

"Yeah, come on," he says with the ghost of his smile from a moment ago on his lips. And we both start towards the door. There are people who need our help and together we can do this. Just as he reaches for the door knob the door swings inward and Rick appears.

"They're going to come back with us." He says looking between us. If he suspects anything between Daryl and I he doesn't let it show.

"Will the other cell block be enough?" I ask I didn't get a good count of many people are here.

"If we put some of them in with us, yes, I think we would should have enough room for everyone." Rick says looking at Daryl. His opinion is the one that Rick respects the most but his eyes do flash over me for a brief moment.

"So we start out tomorrow?" I ask, I'm anxious to get back to cell and rig up a lock of sorts as well as figuring out some sort of curtain for the bars.

"At first light," Rick says.

AN: I did the math there are only about 38 people left in Woodbury at this time but panic is panic. And it is incredibly hard to get out of a panic attack. I did my best to convey that hamster on the wheel feeling of being stuck in a panic attack.

Okay now please click the little box down there and let me know what you thought! I will have another chapter up in a few days, hopefully.


	6. Update

Update:

Hey guys,

Sorry it's been SO long, I've had a lot of health problems and school creep up in the last 6 months. They are all being dealt with and I will hopefully be able to get back on track with the story soon. I have the chapters I want to write planned out (one good thing of lots of time to kill), but I don't want to post one without having the next one written and in the editing process. Please have a little more patience with me, these stories aren't forgotten.


	7. The White Hart

The White Hart

AN: This chapter has a VERY PG-13 rating on it. In case you haven't guessed what happened to Bell, it's just about spelled out in this chapter.

"_Do not dwell in the past, _

_do not dream of the future,_

_concentrate the mind on the present moment"_

_~The Buddah_

The change in the atmosphere was definite when the music switched. The view before his yes changed. First Maggie and Glen paired off together hand in hand and then one of the boys he had seen watching Beth at meals walked up and made his move. Rick even offered Michonne, who was present for once, his hand for the dance. And then there was Bell left by herself as the women she was talking to were asked to dance. He watched a sad smile spread across her lips, and she walked out of the newly opened yard toward the mess with a shrug of her shoulders.

"Go check on her." Carol said leaning her head momentarily against his shoulder. Daryl used to think he head something in her voice when she spoke to him about Bell, but he could never really figure out what it was. At least not until this moment, what he hears in her voice is sadness. But not sadness that she is alone, not sadness that no one looks at her the way Glenn looks at Maggie. No Carol wasn't sad per say; she just was. She loves, she cares, but she wasn't lonely. She was the person that helped hold them together.

Carol was the Prison's Guardian. She was there, always there. She was the one that looked out for everyone. She wanted everyone to survive and find happiness. In particular she wanted to see two people she cared for immensely find happiness, that she suspected lay with the other. She was not sad, she was scheming and Daryl smiled at her back as she swayed away from him with Judith in her arms.

Daryl felt slightly torn between the woman who had shown him there was a path to walk and the woman who had taken him down that path. Mirroring Bell's shrug Daryl followed Bell's silent steps from the Administrative yard to the outer yard. As he walked away from the speakers playing music lowly he became aware of the ever present growling, moaning and breathlessness of the Walkers just beyond the fence. It took his eyes a moment two to adjust to the lower light of the outer yard. The moon was nearly full, it's soft light filling the outer yard, while the warm lantern like light spilled from where the iron doors had been removed from the inner yard.

Sitting on one of the tables just beyond the light from the other yard he found Bell, and was sat silently next to her, he heard the intake of her breath and it's even exhale. They sat a while in the darkness simply breathing the night air, basking in the light of the moon and the presence of the other, savoring the silence around them save for the sounds of the Walkers beyond the fence.

"Makes you think back to those nights before we found the prison," Bell said placing her hand close enough to his so that he could feel the heating radiating from her skin.

"After you climbed out of your tree." He answered with a smile at her like some private joke with himself, that he'd always known he could get her down.

"I had to trust someone eventually."

"You trust me." His voice had lost all of the mirth and teasing it had had when he spoke last. It seemed as though suddenly something profound had occurred to him and he repeated the words again quietly, almost to himself "you trust me." Shaking his head a moment he switched the topic and asked "So this what you Carol have been planning."

"Well, sort of, mostly we thought that it would be nice to celebrate the occasion of taking the prison. It's been a year you know."

"Where did the music come from?"

"Michonne, she's been out on the road so much, she's found a lot of different things, I think Maggie was the one that suggested that she look for some music players. Beth was going to sing all night, but we thought she deserved some fun."

His only response was to grunt and sit silently staring into the darkness of the farm. Several more songs floated over them, and shadowy forms of people passed them in the dark whispering between themselves. The silence between them was not odd or uncomfortable, it was very much like moments from a year previous when Bell would sleep on his shoulder before the dawn light would creep between the trees of the forests. It felt right and Daryl nodded to himself.

"Bell," he started and stopped unsure of what to say next. She leaned closer to him, soft skin that had returned to her frame since they had taken the prison brushed against his arm.

"We've come a long way from a year ago. You've come a long way from a year ago. I'm guessing you don't think the Woodbury people want to kill you anymore." Daryl said with a smile at her, he had been wracking his brain to figure out how to get across what he felt for the woman he ahd carried back to camp a year and a half prior. She couldn't remember the early days with their group for the fever and chills she'd had. He had worried this fierce woman who had thrown a stiletto at his head before collapsing in a clearing would die. She was the elusive white hart that dwelt in the forest depths, Just as likely to cost you your life, in a search for something as rare as your one true love*, as to be defeated.

"Yeah, I know what you mean. It seems like anything is possible now." The moon cast her face in a dim shadow and her usually grey green eyes looked like deep mysterious pools beckoning the unwary to death in their depths.

"Do you really meant? That anything is possible?" He asked meaningfully leaning in closer to her, prepared to drown happily in the dark forest pools that were her eyes.

"I think, that with time you never know. We might be able to live as freely as we once did. Behind walls, even chain-link ones, it seems like anything is possible. Some of us might even find love," she pushed her shoulder into his with a smile "Did you see Rick and Michonne?"

He didn't really want to talk about Rick and Michonne right then in the moon light sitting next Bell. The night felt so similar to the nights they would sit up talking before the Prison. "Honestly Bell, I think I already have." Daryl said looking at her and all the while he commanded himself not to look away from her face.

"You can't, you don't." She shook her head breaking his gaze as she pulled away from him as if he were the plague. He guessed her next move would be to get off the table where they sat, and he was helpless to stop her as she fled from his side.

"Bell," he said his heart begging her not to fly to far from him so he could get the words that had been stuck in his throat far too long out. "Bell, there has been only one certainty deep in my heart for the last year and a half." Her eyes were begging him, for what he couldn't guess and so he could only continue. "And that is that the cold certainty that without you, something very fundament would be missing. I know," He paused and looked at he wrists covered by her weapon holsters. "Bell, I know someone hurt you. And I can't take away what he did. I can only promise that I will always be here, for whatever you need, until you can trust that I would rather die than hurt you." Her hand came up to his mouth and her finger tips rested lightly on his lips the begging in her eyes relieved slightly, if at all.

"Don't Daryl, don't say those things. Do not every say you would rather die. Not in this world." She took a few further steps from the table before turning to face him her face livid "Don't you understand, can't you understand how dangerous words like that are? If you died," she stopped a moment to draw a breath "if you died, I don't know what I would do. I mean I know I would continue breathing, I just don't know how."

"Bell?" Daryl could hear the uncertainty in his voice and it echoed the fool's hope that was beating his heart. Her words made it sound like she cared for him.

"I suppose you never thought I could care about you." She said as she approached him "Daryl, you saved my life first off; showed me that there were some people I could trust. If you hadn't told me I could come out of that tree so long ago, I don't know if I would still be here."

"You would be." He said voice full of certaintiy. "You're smart Bell, things might be a bit different but you would be here. You wouldn't have left."

"I don't know not trusting anyone, I might have decided it was easier on my own than trying to ignore what might be perceived as judgemental looks." As he took a tentative step closer to her feeling the relief of not running her back up her proverbial tree wash through him.

"Bell, all that matters now is that you're here now." He said as he pulled her in close.

"Why me?"

"Why you?" he paused a thought a moment, "hmm, well you weren't the first woman to try to kill me, I don't know" he could feel her smile against his chest. "Maybe it was because that morning I found you, you looked like something out of myth. It looked like you stepped right out of the primeval forest and into the land of the dead." His grip loosened as she took a step away.

"Which myth?" her eyes met his and shone at him in the starlight, seeming only to enhance his belief in her mythological origins.

He smiled and laughed a small slightly embarrassed laugh, after running his hands through his hair continued "They myth of the White hart. The white stage of Celtic mythology, well maybe not the Celtic form, I never really like the thought that the appearance of the hart would indicate that a fundamental law had been broken; to me at least it always seemed, because it appears in so many different cultures, to be something mystical and most commonly unobtainable."

Bell laughed softly "trust you, the great huntsman, to be obsessed with a legend about an Otherworldly quarry."

"I never said I was obsessed with it." Daryl said somewhat defensively.

"You didn't need to say it Daryl, you knew there was more than one legend regarding it, translates to you having researched it, which means you cared about it. The fact that you could speak so well about it means that you have as fair knowledge of how such legends applied to life."

"Says the woman who gave my brother a warrior's pyre, and said he would go to Valhalla." Daryl retorted as a wave of sadness washed over him at the memory of his brother's death. Bell's hand slipped into his and she began pulling him towards the Cell Blocks.

"Daryl, I didn't say it was a bad thing. It's a hunter's story, I'm not surprised you'd know it. It's just a surprise to be compared to something so rare."

"So what know?" Daryl asked as they approached their cell block.

"Well I don't really know. I care about you Daryl, it's just I don't know how secure I feel with this feeling. It's not a situation I really thought I'd find myself in." her eyes didn't meet his when she said those, but she did not pull away from the beneath the arm he had thrown around her shoulders.

"Bell," he took a half step away from her so he could look her in the eyes as he continued "I meant what I said, I know you were hurt before, I don't know what happened, but I can guess" he pulled her close as he finished his thought "and I promise I will not push you. You decided the pace of what happens. So the next step is up to you."

"Okay Daryl, I can do that. For right now, I don't want anything to change. Some days you sleep with me, other days you sleep at your place." Their direction decided, the two walked silently through the darkened halls of the Prison towards their home. The morning sun would find them asleep in a bed for once.

AN: So I will using my Thanksgiving holiday to catch up to the series. I should be able to get them all posted on Mondays before the second half of season 6, but depending I might be posting twice a week. Now please click the little box down there and tell me what you thought, and follow so you get a notification when I update!


	8. Otherside of Someday

_May my __heart not break today, for the se tides of our everyday sorrows are strong; but I am sorrow itself_

_~Diedreid_

I didn't hear the sound of the blade hitting his neck, but I've done it enough that I know the sound in my sleep. I jumped I know I did. How could I not? The sounds from that day, the screams of his daughters, the sickening wet crunch of steel on bone, will echo in my dreams until I draw my last breath. Bullets flew from the guns around me, I doubt very many hit their marks. I am certain mine did not do any damage, I was blinded by tears for the man who had helped save me, and survived so much. He had held us together, and as he died before his home I mourned him and knew that he would be welcomed warmly in the next life by those who had gone before.

Nearly everyone had gathered around the fence to watch in horror as the Governor held our family hostage unless we left our home to them. Everyone was in place, we had prepared for something like this, but not this we would never have been able to foresee this. Daryl he was across the yard, right next to Carl, and Maggie and Beth weren't far from me. They were low to the ground behind some benches. At least until the blade bit into their father's neck. That's when all hell broke loose, we all fell apart, but so did his people. They broke down the fence and brought hell with them.

Now I'm back up a tree with no one and nothing. Only what I had when I fled the yard as the tank rolled through the fence to the inner yard. I ran, I ran like a coward, I ran as bullets flew closes enough to rustle the jacket I scavenged two years ago. I am ashamed that I left people I have come to know and value. Fear took over and I ran for the safety of the woods. Perhaps I wouldn't be so wretched up here in my tree if I hadn't fled in fear.

As if I need feel worse memories from the afternoon float over my mind featuring the most dear person to me, Daryl. As he handed me the gun he looked at me with those soft blue eyes. As my hands wrapped around the stock and grip he asked if I was ready to run. '_Remember what I said at the field a year ago Bell,' _he'd said ashe let go of the gun and pulled my body close to press his lips against my forehead. What I wouldn't give to feel those lips right now.

I did what he told me. I ran, I ran and didn't look back until I was sheltered in the forest beyond the prison. I abandoned them. The truth of my actions lies heavy on my heart. I ran and I will never again see those that I would trade the world to see again.

When did they begin to mean so much to me? Was it when Judith was born? Was it when we were all back together feeling out our place in our dysfunctional family unit? Was it when Merle swung his arm around me one of the last nights he was with us? Was it the night Daryl told me how he felt? But more importantly how do I live with myself now? I know I need to move on past the life I had at the prison and the fact that I abandoned the people I loved. I know that one day the pain exploding through my heart tonight will not be so overwhelming but, for tonight at least, I'm going to stay in my tree and try to hide my tears from the moon.

Tomorrow will be soon enough for picking the pieces of my life back up. As I pull my jacket closer around my body my hand touches the portion of my collar bone that Daryl used to stroke while I slept on his shoulder, it was his way of letting me know he was there. I'll miss it and that part of me will always belong to him no matter how long I live. The small concave part of my collar bone belongs to Daryl Dixon, along with so much else.

I can just glimpse the blown out towers we thought of rebuilding with mud bricks. Home; that place was home. It had taken time but I had gotten used to all those people. It almost felt like we could go back, we were family, we were a community and we had hope. And then he came back and took it all away. Right up until he murdered Hershel I thought we could, I thought we could give it up and find another place, restart and rebuild. But the moment Michonne's sword cut into his flesh I knew as long as we were alive we would never be able to live in peace as long as _he_ lived. He cost me so much, I know he is not at peace. His spirit is one that will be forced to wander until the end of existence.

I wonder if anyone else survived. There was enough time to get out, I did, and surely I couldn't be the only one. The bus! A sudden burst of memory nearly jolts me from the tiny warm spot I have managed to create on this miserable night up a tree again as I remember the bus. We were all supposed to get on the bus and escape in case the prison was overrun. It might have gotten out. There might be people to find. We still might be able to begin again.

Maybe, just maybe I haven't lost everything. These people that had become my family, they might still be alive and I might be able to find them; Beth, Maggie, Glenn, Rick, Carl, Carol, Michonne, and I….I can't, I won't say his name, I won't even think it. I can't risk the pain of find them, but not him. Maybe sticking near the prison might be a good idea. The bus pulled out before the firing died down, so some people might still be in the area. If they survived we might bump into each other.

"I went back for the kids," she said when they'd run into each other at the end of the prison. This must be what it felt like when the castle was stormed by an invading army. All those that could get out did.

"We gotta run now Beth. We gotta run." He could hardly believe the words he'd spoken early that day. The girl was dozing fitfully crammed next to him in the trunk of some old clunker from before. Not that he could blame her, she'd lost her entire family in the span of an hour. No matter how many times you lost people, it never got easier and it was a lesson Beth was still relatively new to.

She'd mourned the people the lost early on, but she hadn't shed a tear when he had told her about Zack, she'd simply said she was glad she hadn't said goodbye. But despite all her show Daryl was certain she had regrets. She felt for everyone. That was what made her so sweet and why it was so easy to love her. He would make sure she would survive this, he had to, and he couldn't lose another person. He had his part to do in make sure she survived. Bell had started it and he would finish it.

He might not be the best at teaching her how to dampen her emotions, Bell would have been better at it. But he could teach her how to survive, how to find food, how to track. He learned the lessons young, younger than most and though he lived it, he was not a paragon of Maslow's Triangle, that had been Bell. The pyramid was like mile markers for her, for what she could feel. He had pushed her to admit that they were safe enough to face the third one. His heart seized in his chest; he had been convinced that even if they weren't, they would be fine as long as they were together. But now she was gone. He'd had a few fleeting dreams in the prison of a future, a better future than he ever hoped for two years before.

She had taught the people of Woodbury and others how to defend themselves, she had touched lives. She didn't know but she had made such a difference. She had come so far, she had started to trust, and led the way for him to face the things he had buried in his past. None of it mattered, not in the end. Everything they had gained was gone and so many people with it. Daryl squeezed his eyes shut and tried to push away the face of a woman he would never see again. But she seemed to stay there just beyond his conscious thought. He could almost make out her taunting smile, as if saying 'I'm still here, all you have to do is find me in this wide world.'

Beth jerked in her sleep suddenly lashing out in the small space of the trunk, she whimpered softly as her arm recoiled to her body. In the dim moonlight he watched her face contort in pain, cautiously Daryl reached his hand across the space that separated them and rubbed her head. He had learned in the early days with Bell that sometimes the lightest touch, the smallest bit of pressure could help with the nightmares. He had always rubbed part of her collar bone near her shoulder where his hand fell when they slept upright.

The pain associated with the second woman to try and kill him was warm and almost welcome to the nothingness that remained since he had fled the prison with a newly made orphan in tow. Perhaps with time he would be able to smile and remember the way she silently walked up beside him on guard duty, the quiet way she did things around the prison, almost anticipating what people needed. The way that somehow without doing much or meaning to she wormed her way into your heart and became as important as the walls around the prison to the people within the walls.

As he lay in the dark dank trunk soothing a young woman with years of nightmares in her he quietly wondered when the Valkyrie had stolen his heart. And if it would be her spirit that came to claim his when he left this world. What a wonderful day that someday would be, when he could see those green-gray eyes again. As he closed his and basked in the warm of such a moment he felt sleep pulling on the edge of his consciousness. Quickly he snapped his eyes open and began recounting the many religious myths he had learned as a child. There were so many, he should be able to make it to the morning. Then they could find food, shelter, safety. Somewhere they could work on someday from.

Someday down the line in the future Daryl would talk to Beth about what love was. And why it was worth risking your heart for. He would tell her about what he saw in that fierce woman who would have killed him had she not been on death's door. He would tell the girl about why the pain was worth the risk. But first they needed food, shelter, safety. For the time being though they would live like Bell. Mile marker to mile marker.


	9. Save Me

"No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path."

~Buddha

AN: Another not so happy Bell chapter. If you don't want to read about what happened to her** before** don't read the italics

Death, death was everywhere she looked, from the grave yard just visible on the hill in the prison yard to the not dead yet Walkers. The faces of people who had decimated her life visible in the herd of dead. Those faces were between Bell and her most important possession. It was there in her room right where she had left it after the flu swept through along with the other things she would need to live in the elements. And between were the dead.

"What are you planning to do? Cover yourself in guts and gore to get it?" the girl asked leaning against the tree and watched Bell stare at the prison. "It's suicide, but then you know that; maybe you don't care." She said with a careless shrug of her shoulders.

"Everything we need to survive is in there. Food, clothing, water-"

"Your book."

"Yes the book, the book is important. You should know that better than anyone." Bell said glaring over her shoulder at the girl standing in the ankle deep grass watching her. "If you're not going to help Emma, the least you could do is not get in my way."

"If you want to go, I'm not stopping you. I'm also not going to bail you out."

"Wouldn't expect you to. Might break a nail." Bell spat glaring at the other's manicured nails. "Now that that is settled stand back." Moving away from the tree towards the bodies that lay forgotten where they were abandoned. Bell took a deep breath and began not looking at the faces of those she cut into. The light was just starting to come over the tree tops in the beautiful way she used to watch through the windows of the cell block. In a matter of hours the beam would shine through the window through the bars of her cell on to the neatly arranged desk.

She hoped to be finished before then, but things hadn't exactly gone as planned recently. Once she was covered she didn't even bother looking over her shoulder, she just walked forward into the herd gathering around and in the herd and hoped this would work. She'd only seen it once before, when Michonne had walked out of the dead with a basket full of baby formula.

"I'll be here when you get out. Unless you don't and then well, I guess it won't matter where I am." Emma called to Bell's back as the other walked toward the prison. As she shambled through she desperately hoped nothing would go wrong

"I get it!" Emma called out rushing after Bell. "You're going back in there to find out if _he_ got out."

"I thought you weren't coming with me."

"I thought I'd go at least to the fence." Emma said falling into step beside her. "You know so I can watch."

Bell felt her ire rise at the presence of the other. Emma wasn't generally so bothersome. It must be everything that had happened causing her to act out like this, though certainly there were worse things she could say. But she knew exactly knew which buttons to push. Bell wasn't' going back to see if Daryl had made it out or gotten stuck somewhere she was going back to get the things she needed to survive and nothing else. Or at least that's what she was trying to convince herself of.

The distance from the fence to the yard was only 150 meters, not a large distance in the scheme of it. She had crossed the field to the fence hundreds of times in the last year and one way or another this would be the last time she made the journey. Passing through the field and the destruction of the farm was like walking through the remnants of another's life. Bell recognized the landmarks, but the emotions and memories tied to them were not hers. They couldn't be, she couldn't remember the people who starred in those memories not if they weren't breathing anymore.

Bell passed slowly through the Walkers, holding her breath every time one of them leaned closer to her. Praying silently to all the gods that she could complete the task before her and return to the forest. As the tank loomed in front of her she kept her eyes fixed. Only when she reached it did she dare glance around the remains of the yard.

There were so many more Walkers in the yard than when she'd fled through the rubble the day before, they must have been attracted by the flames of the burning prison. She had made it this far, she was half way to the cell block. It could be done, she wasn't taking back the prison, just getting supplies. Not breaking from the seemingly mindless movement of the dead, Bell began moving in the direction of the doors to the cell block. The inside would likely have fewer Walkers than the yard.

'Nearly there' Bell thought as she slipped behind the gate she had barricaded herself behind with Hershel and Beth when they had first taken the prison. She pushed the pain of their loss from her mind to be dealt with later when there was time. And then behind the door to the cell blocks, the shadows wrapped themselves about her and she passed through the corridors like a building would know nothing but shadows for the foreseeable future. She dispatched anything that got between her and her goal.

As she approached the turn in the gangways to cellblock C she drew a deep breath pleading silently to just make it through this the most arduous part of her journey. Once behind the gated doors of the cellblock she dispatched a walker who resembled a woman from Woodbury who had moved into an extra cell on C block. Least she wouldn't have to suffer any more in this world.

Moving methodically through the block Bell cleared the mostly empty lower level before moving up the staircase to her Cell. The smell of death surrounded her, it clung to the walls. The specter raked its nails down the walls of the block and left the trail of its passing, scaring the world. She felt as if its oily congealed blood dripped in semi-dried globules down her arms leaving a black trail through the remains of her life. Once more she pushed aside the useless thoughts and proceeded with the task at hand and checked the remained cells for any Walkers. Praying once again, it was becoming a bad habit to depend on invisible forces that were as likely there as not, that she would not find any.

The cells checked, Bell was free to gather the things she needed. As she looked through the bars she saw the bunk she had once called home neatly made. Her bag hanging on the poles of the upper. Beyond were the holes she had specifically carved into the wall to hold her containers of dried herbs and seeds. She'd had such hopes for the cell. On the facing wall was the desk and it's precisely placed containers and books. Though the sight was familiar and she had memories tied to that room they belonged to someone else, someone long gone.

She felt like a stranger, a thief, an interloper in the very place where she had once slept with a man who made the world seem full of possibility. As she filled her bag with the essentials from the cell Bell felt the weight of those who had once called this place home and rushed through the remaining things she needed to gather for the road ahead.

As she prepared to reenter the herd Bell was not overly fond of trip back through the field determined to be away from this place where she felt so exposed she slipped the pack on to her back. When she reached the stairs she did not cast her eye back to the place she had once slept so safely. That place no longer offered any comfort.

"So you made it back." Emma said as Bell approached the tree where she had slept and found the other below the next morning.

"I did. So sorry to disappoint." Bell retorted to the girl clad in light denim her weapons hidden from sight or forgotten.

"So what's the plan now that you have your book?"

"The bus got out. I want to see what happened to it."

"Not a good idea." Emma said looking quizzically at Bell, almost willing the other to read her mind. When she didn't reply Emma continued "I just mean if it's within walking distance, at this point it's probably not a good thing."

"So what do you recommend, hmmm?"

"We should go through the woods, more cover. That's where anyone who survived will be." Something in her voice suggestive of what she hoped to find in the woods. Perhaps it was Emma and not Bell who wanted to know if Daryl had survived.

"Sounds reasonable enough. When did you get so smart?" Bell said as she turned to the deeper woods and continued forward towards what, she did not know. There was nothing left at the prison, moving forward was the one thing she could do.

Beneath her feet the decomposing leaves absorbed her footfalls as Bell moved quietly between the trees. A short while after abandoning her night camp, the prison was lost to the trees. Perhaps in the years to come it would be a refuge for some people to come. Though perhaps too, it would be broken apart by the very plants she had been cultivating in the bullet holes from its first attack. What she knew for certain was that it would never again hear the laughter of children at play. Those days had been fleeting just as the dreams they had had for a future.

As the day passed the thinner trees of the edges of the forest gave way to thicker more sturdy trees that had stood for decades if not generations. They had run into scattered Walkers among the trees; Bell had not been careful about hiding tracks or how she disposed of the Walkers that crossed her. If anyone came across her trail they would hopefully be able to read the signs of who had left the bodies and catch up to her.

In the forest, day faded fast Bell had barely gone several miles from the prison before the forest twilight descended upon them. As she looked about the area she was in her eyes fell on a robust looking tree. Her smile widened perhaps the laurel oak would pacify Emma at least long enough for Bell to find the roots she needed to return the apparition to the place she had been hiding all these months.

The trunk of the tree ascended at least 20 feet above her head, it would be a safe location to pass the night in. As darkness descended fully on the forest Bell was settled as comfortably as one could be in a tree. In the fork made the branching boughs she had tuck a mason jar that held a small fire in it, just enough to warm the glass her feet without risking setting fire to her perch.

AN: Last warning. If you don't want to read about what happened to her skip the italics

_ She felt sick, she felt dirty, and she felt wrong. But most she could feel his hands, his hand on her arms holding her in place. His fingers were digging deeply into her arms. There would be bruises there later and that made her feel even sicker. But most she wished herself anywhere else. Even dead. _

_ Because the worst was coming, like it always had. Before she knew it, and without having any idea of how it was managed, he had her on the ground. His body between her and freedom beyond the door. Everything felt like it happened in the same instant and dragged on for eternity. It had seemed in the same instant her back hit the floor his assault on her body and soul began. Her only recourse, the silent darkness of her mind. Fragments of memory broke through the fog of time. And she could remember his weight on top of her, and the way the bones of his hips felt as they hit hers.. She could remember her desperate plea to the darkness of her mind for it all to end. _

_ Slowly, languidly consciousness returned to her listless body. As indifference gave way to awareness Bell gathered herself together and moved towards the last thing she had thought about, getting out of the door. He hadn't locked it, thinking the dead that waited on the other side lock enough. _

_ As she ran from the house heedless of the walking dead, she fled from not only him but also the countless other times she had resurfaced after similar incidents. As her feet propelled her forward she left what he took on the floor of the dilapidated house. _

Bell jerked awake as the wave of nausea reached its peak and the empty contents of her stomach threatened to project from her perch in the tree to the ground below. Only the ropes she had used to climb the tree held her to the bough.

"Careful." A voice from the facing bough said. "There's a herd passing below."

"What are you still doing her?" Bell spat at the voice.

"Someone had to keep watch. You didn't actually think the laurel would keep me away?" Emma said with a devilish smirk at Bell. "I'm not some Elf-Fairy modeled after the Tuatha dé Danann. I'm not going to go away that easily. I'm not some ephemeral being haunting you. You're haunting you, how sad is that?"

"So you concern is purely motivated by self-interest?" Bell said wishing almost that her nightmare had continued instead of waking to an apparition from her past.

"Well it wouldn't be any fun if you died. Then what would happen to me?" Emma asked her voice almost seemed like she was sorry. But Bell had learned in the early days of being alone that she was not to be trusted

"Technically you've never really been alive. You're the person I used to be haunting me. You the one that Lindsey wanted. I left you in that house along with everything else about _that _life." Bell bristled at the sprite in the tree with her.

"Analyzing yourself now?" Emma asked with a raised eyebrow "Tsk, tsk. Not a healthy sign." She certainly seemed to be enjoying the attention Bell was paying her.

"Finally something we agree upon. You tormenting me is not a healthy thing. Why don't you piss off?" Now she was getting into a fight with a figment of her imagination. Healthy.

"Because I think you need me more than you know." Emma's voice sounded like she was starting to pout a bit.

"Why would I need you?"

"Because I'm still here. If you didn't need me I wouldn't be here. You would have been able to move on with your life and a man who was there for you more than a year ago. Instead you wasted time jumping at his shadow thinking it was Lindsey. And now…." Emma trailed off her eyes looking out over the lower tree tops as if to say 'and look what that's gotten you now.'

"I don't want to blame you. I want to see you heal so when you see him again you can be happy. After everything you deserve to be happy."

"I don't know if that's going to be possible. The chance of me finding him, the chances of him being alive….." Bell trailed off following the other's gaze over the tree tops as though smoke from a fire would rise up marking where he was. And all she need do would be to follow it to him.

"You've always said he can survive anything so he's out there somewhere. You just need to find him." Emma said earnestly.

"Yeah." Bell said dismissively wishing it were so easy. Through the upper boughs of the tree she could just make out the deep dark blue of night fading to the lighter indigo of the pre-dawn. She must have slept for a good portion of the night.

"You have to believe that he's still alive. Otherwise what are you living for?" Emma question, her sudden optimism bothered Bell more than her presence.

"Maybe I just don't know how to die." Bell said quietly, not that it mattered, Emma wasn't too far away. "Maybe I do believe he is alive. It doesn't really matter, what are the chances I find him in this?" She questioned gesturing to the expanse of the world they could see from their perch.

"It's daunting sure, but if you believe he was out there you should be able to guess what he would do. And that's how you find him. Think like him." Emma said from the opposing bough. "Can I ask you something?"

"You've never asked before."

"You've never talked to me before." Emma said looking sadly at Bell. "You always ignored me before and then you hated me."

"If you're going to ask me something ask me." Bell said tired of the phantasm's psychology.

"Do you want to go back?" the light from the sky shaded her face in silver. If she wasn't certain that Emma wasn't her twin Bell would have been certain she was sitting in the tree with her.

"Go back? Go back to what? The prison my life was before this?" Bell shrugged looking around the silent forest save for the breathless moans of Walkers drifting on the breeze. "At least now there isn't internment for killing those who deserve death. You only risk your life to kill them and survival is a gift not a gamble.

"But you didn't kill him. And he obviously still has power over you."

"He can't touch me. Not anymore."

"But he still has control over you. As long as you let what he did control your actions he has control over you." Emma said looking at Bell. Psychology had always been Emma's forte.

"And how can anyone do that? Just move on? Forget that it happened? Push those memories aside as if they belong to someone else?" Bell asked the other. Her words hung between them in the still night air.

"Isn't that what you have been doing? You've been hiding from them. All these years don't you think he's taken enough from you" Her voice was soft, convincing, hopeful and comforting. That voice made it seem like just maybe it would be okay. That after all this time after everything it could be okay. All she had to do was believe and let go.

Looking towards the ground Bell could see the ghostly outline of the roots of the tree that had sheltered her that night. In an hour or so it would be bright enough in the forest to begin a second day alone. Letting go would have to wait for another day. Today she needed to find more food. Winter would be coming fast.

AN: Okay there we go. Now click the little box below and tell me what you thought.


	10. Desperado

Desperado

And freedom, oh freedom, well that's just some people talkin'  
Your prison is walking through this world all alone

Desperado  
the Eagles

Claimed this, and claimed that; Daryl was certain if these people saw another human being they would claim it for the right to either defile or kill it, likely both. They were merciless, with no regard for others not even among themselves. The rules of ownership were all that mattered and all that defined them. They cared for nothing but themselves and their needs. They were truly men breed for what the world had become, no better than the dead that stalked the living.

He had known men like that his whole life. Men lost from truth or simply those that did not know the value of life. It had taken Daryl getting lost in the woods at 6 to understand his place in the food chain and the fragility of life. That it was so easily wiped away and snuffed from the world as if it had never been and it had taken meeting a woman who wished herself dead for him to treasure it.

Even the barest thought of what he had lost through his grief addled mind sent searing pain through his heart, so fresh he could almost feel the blood seep from the wound's opening. The weight of the Prison's loss lay heavy upon his shoulders as his feet carried him forward; away from the gapping empty wound that was the Prison and the life that was being made there.

Throughout the days he had caught a glimpse of a grey-green figure passing through the woods, but whenever he looked closer, it was always revealed to be a very human like shadow or a walker. He waited for and feared the day it was no longer a shadow but the specter of a now dead woman, like the mythical Undine*, come to claim him for her own.

When he saw such a shadow he paid attention to the sounds surrounding him, letting the presence of the life wash over and anchor him in the present. He never dared think what would happen if he were alone and saw one of those shadows. Would he run off into the woods in search of the phantasm it resembled until he died? Would he slowly loose his mind to loneliness and grief? Was there anyone left to find? And if there was what were the chances he could find them again? And so he stayed. He stayed with men he would never have chosen to associate with before. He stayed and watched for the moment he would leave, but it hadn't come yet.

They were going nowhere. And so was he. He had lost everything and everyone. They had ignored all the warnings, Andrea, the Big Spot, Karen and Bill, the Flu, and then finally it fell. They lost everything, all because he hadn't read the writing on the wall. Now there was nothing and no one. That was the most devastating concept. Nothing, no one, they had all scattered or died because of him.

Because he hadn't been strong enough to take the shot when it mattered, when so many lives hung on the line he had failed. And now he was alone, overwhelmingly so. There would be no more concerts by a girl who couldn't fathom death. Never again would she sing so innocently, and he would never watch as Judith grew into Bell's weapons or watch as Carol taught her how to cook. All that stretched before him was an empty road to nowhere.

Who better to walk such a road with than others who were also stuck on it? He may disagree with their methods but he wouldn't turn down the defense against the herd or the encroaching loneliness of his life. For the time being Joe's Gang was a benefit, one day that would change. As the days grew colder and shorter he had begun thinking more and more of leaving. Yet he only continued to wonder, the time never seemed quite ripe to leave.

They were looking for some people. Supposedly someone had been killed, and they wanted revenge, big surprise. It's what everyone wanted, revenge for something or other. Daryl hadn't asked details and they hadn't been shared. In the end it didn't really matter' they wouldn't be deterred and he didn't want to face the emptiness of the world alone just yet. So he stayed; he stayed so those he had failed wouldn't come calling in the night.

The one face he feared most coming for him in the night was Beth, he had failed her the most. She was the most crushing failure of his life, he was supposed to protect her, and she was his last chance at redemption after the prison. How could he face the others, if they still lived having failed to keep Beth safe? If only he had taken the shot back at the prison. All this could have been avoided. Maybe they would still have the prison, Beth and Maggie would likely still have a father. And he could still be waking up to a beautiful woman as opposed to the hungry empty eyes of the other in the gang.

"You always this quiet?" Joe asked falling into step beside Daryl and breaking the mental reprimand for his failings of the last season.

"Guess I don't see much to talk about." Daryl answered not wanting to get drawn into conversation. He liked the silent company of the others and preferred not to talk about that which was past. His past was his. It had wounds he would rather not open to the world.

"How about where you came from," Joe said his voice highly suggestive. He wanted to know where he had been before. The man had some sort of sick code about truth and lies. That it was only through being honest that men could truly trust one another. By not sharing what his past had been Daryl violated that to a certain extent. It wasn't an out and out violation but it wasn't a full disclosure. In Joe's code it bordered with a lie.

Bell could keep her Vikings, long dead warrior gods that celebrated and drank in the afterlife. He knew that he would never see such a drinking hall, even if they existed, he would never see it. There was an eternity of darkness awaiting him behind the veil. Unless he could somehow make up for his failings, maybe then he would find those he loved in an afterlife. So he continued forward through the hordes of the undead with men more damned than himself.

They were no longer a benefit. He was as alone in the group as he would be on his own. The mood had changed slowly where Joe had seemed coldly caring at first but over the winter it had slowly shifted to hostility over the unanswered questions about his past. Daryl had slowly been pushed to the perimeter.

Tonight was his chance, he would disappear slip away into the night, let the cold darkness swallow him. He could cover his tracks, sleep in trees. Disappear into the world of the dead. He had been planning to slip away as soon as they bedded down. But Joe kept pushing them on certain they were going to accomplish something, Daryl thought he could see the man giddy when the moonlight caught his face between the trees.

So he continued to follow at the back of the group, revising his plan, if he could put enough distance between them perhaps he could slip away sooner. As they pressed forward Daryl slipped further and further behind. As they walked up a small ditch beside the road Daryl thought he saw his chance. There was a Chevy abandoned like every other vehicle in the world now; if he could just make it to the back of the vehicle he could wait for the others to disappear into the darkness and then he too could vanish into the darkness of the night.

No one had looked back at him by the time he reached the Chevy their eyes and minds occupied by what Joe was saying by the hood. His chance had come, Daryl almost couldn't believe his luck. It seemed despite everything he was going to be able to get away from these people. Then he heard the exuberant joy in Joe's voice. They had found someone, maybe the people they were looking for. Three people that was all Joe had told Daryl, but he'd read the tracks they had followed through the woods, two adults, and one adolescent.

Joe's teasing jubilant voice drifted from the front of the car, where Daryl assumed he'd found the people back to where Daryl waited. And the old sickness he'd felt as a child when his father would drink settled deep in the pit of his stomach. There had been nothing he could do to stop his father, but he could do something to stop Joe. Or at least give the person they wanted to kill a chance. Trial by combat, that's what it was called. The ancients did it. The survivor's actions were considered favored by the gods.

He couldn't stay silent. This was why he had stayed. This was his redemption. He could save the people the gang had hunted all season. "Joe! Hold up." He said stepping from the darkness beyond the light of the small fire. And he look straight into the eyes of a man he had thought dead. Joe had a gun to Rick's head!

"You're stopping me at 8 Daryl." Joe responded clearly displeased. Now there was only way Daryl would be free of the man, death.

"Just hold up," he said walking closer. Such a sad realization, death stalked the edges of the light. Daryl could feel its clawing hunger, it would claim several souls before the sun would rise over the carnage.

"This is the guy that killed Lou, so we've got nothing to talk about." One of the others said, Daryl had never bothered to learn names.

"The thing about nowadays is we've got nothing but time." That was Joe, cold, deadly, psychopathic Joe. His eyes glanced around the men with weapons draw on unarmed people. Daryl's people. "Say your peace Daryl." There was hint of something in his voice, was it hope? Did Joe hope this would be the night he could be rid of Daryl permanently?

It would be quite a feat to stop the execution that Joe wanted, but he had to try. If they lived through the night, Daryl at least wouldn't be alone; if these three had survived perhaps just perhaps there was hope of others. "These people, you're gonna let them go." He tried to make it clear this wasn't a discussion, he wasn't going to stand by and watch this happen. "These are good people." He wasn't lying Rick and Michonne were good people. They strived to make a better life for anyone they met. Hell, they may have even tried to save these men, had events been different.

But Joe wasn't. "No, no I think Lou would disagree with you on that. I'll of course have to speak for him and all because your friend here strangled him in a bathroom." Daryl head the inflection in Joe's voice.

There were of course worse things than death, and standing by while vandals murdered your friends was one of them. He had one last thing to try, taking a deep breath he spread his arms out to the side and with a sigh said "You want blood I get it." If this didn't work Daryl couldn't fathom how they see the morning. Know full well what he was doing he slid the crossbow strap from his shoulder, placing it near to Joe's feet he continued "Take it from me man, come on." As he stepped away from the weapon Daryl hoped split blood would appease them.

"Come on." He continued to step back waiting for Joe to make his decision. For a few heart beats Joe looked on Daryl with disbelief, it seemed he couldn't fathom why one man would give up his life for another. But Daryl owed Rick, Michonne and everyone else lost or otherwise everything. He owed them for taking him in, for accepting him. And for Bell. Even if it had only been a few short months of the beginning of a relationship it was still more than he would ever have had without them.

"See now that right there is a lie. This man killed our friend." And there was that word. The word he had been dreading hear from that man's lips. It seems in the face of something he couldn't understand Joe fell back on his old stand by, 'it's a lie.'

Daryl thought perhaps his act of self-sacrifice had stunned Joe enough to let them get away. "It's a lie." Joe articulated. It was the first blood in the water around sharks.

"Come on." Daryl tried one last time, the words were barely out of his mouth when the butt of a rifle landed squarely in his gut. After the first few blows the pain became so overwhelming that his mind retreated to the dark place from his childhood beatings. Every so often between the blows Daryl could hear Joe gloating to Rick about how they were going to completely destroy him before they finally killed him. It was too bad for them that Daryl hadn't lied. Rick was a good man.

What was even worse for them was that not one of them had the sense of demons. Not a single man thought to run from the wrath of a good man. And to threaten a man's family with rape before death was to sign your death certificate.

By the time they realized who they were dealing with it was too late. Joe lay on the ground bleeding from a bite wound in his throat, the rest were taken down quickly in their panic. It was still a while before silence descend on the night. The last of the thugs expired slowly as he was opened for chin to groin. He suffered, not as much as he should have but he left the world in agony.

*The Undine is a mythical being that is formed from two elements and given life. These creatures have no place in our world and must depend on the love of a mortal to remain in our world. When that love is lost the Undine must return to the elements from whence they came. The mortal though is not spared, having come in contact with something mythical. The mortal is marked and at a chosen time the Undine returns to claim the soul of the mortal.


	11. I Still

"Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation."

― **Kahlil Gibran**

_ "__He loves you,__ not that I can really blame him." Merle said his eyes roving her body. In the days since he had arrived Bell had spent enough time around the brothers to see the dedication of the older to his younger. "Always an adventure to love a woman who can kill you." Bell couldn't help the small smile that crossed her lips as Merle shock his torso and grinned like a fool at some memory. _

_ And they always caught her by surprise and this time like every other she picked her head up and locked eyes with the man sitting across the impromptu mess outside C Block. "Didn't know that did ya'." Merle said somewhat triumphantly. He had been trying for days for a way to trip her up. "It seems there is a lot about Daryl I do not know." She replied evenly. Her eyes level with Merle's. She tried to keep her voice cold and distant, but somehow it just came out wrong. _

_ The man only smiled at her and chortled almost to himself and continued "See that's why he loves you. You don't bullshit._

_ "He always was the idealistic one. Always thought that one day he could get out from the shadow of the Old Bastard." Listening to Merle was an interesting past time. He at least didn't stick to one topic. "But he did do his damnedest to beat it out of him after I left." There was a small bit of regret in the older man's voice, as though he would change the past if he could. It was these infrequent moments that humanized the man everyone demonized. At least to Bell's eyes. But now she now felt the suspicion that it was he had guessed all along that she was the reason Daryl came back, but he couldn't be more wrong. Bell was certain of that. Merle was wrong, Daryl didn't love her. He couldn't, he wouldn't. And besides she didn't have a heart to give any longer. No matter how well he thought he knew his brother. No one could know the heart of another. Daryl couldn't, wouldn't love her. It was just to Hallmark and life had become very suddenly anything but a Hallmark love story. _

She had been spiraling her way around the prison looking for any sign of another living being with limited luck. It had only been a few days and she had come across no discernable footprints, no indication of any kind that someone had gotten out until one morning checking her traps she had stepped in a full diaper! If she hadn't been so thrilled to find evidence of someone with a baby she would have been disgusted by the further digested contents. A diaper meant that someone had gotten out, and that someone had Judith!

All at once Bell had felt her heart soar with hope that somehow, someway life wasn't as bleak as it was before. Shortly after she had come across train tracks. As she followed them she felt better knowing that if there was anyone left alive all she had to do was catch them. Not long after she found the tracks she came across the carnage of several beaten bodies. Across the tracks from the sprawled bodies was a sign for Terminus. It said 'Sanctuary for all, Community for all, Those who arrive Survive.' And Bell knew where she would find her family. Emma proved her worth once more and recommended that they take a less direct route and approach through the woods to stake it out. Since the first night the phantasm had been assisting as much as annoying and begrudgingly Bell had to admit that her advice on moving past what Lindsey had done was sort of working.

For the last had been several days of walking through the woods with no sight or sound of another living being. Plenty of Walkers, Bell was starting to worry that the choice of going through the woods had been a mistake. The sun was setting even earlier in the days, the short chill days of winter seemed to be passing earlier than usual. She hoped that with the seeming start of spring she would find more than just the sun. Perhaps out there ahead of her at the end of the tracks her family waited for her and all she had to was catch up to them.

"You think we're getting close?" Emma asked from across the trunk of another tree.  
"I'm sure we are. It didn't look very far on the map. Hopefully, tomorrow or the next day, we'll be there."  
"And then what?"  
"Then hopefully we'll find Maggie and Glenn. And who else knows?" Bell said, remembering back to a sign she had glimpsed through the trees telling Glenn to go to Terminus.

"What about Daryl? What are you going to do when you see him?" Emma asked with inflection in her voice. Bell felt her cheeks flush at the thought of seeing Daryl again and how happy it would make her.

Sure she was smiling like a fool Bell ducked her head and said "I don't know. I mean its Daryl. It's not like I've ever been good at this admit your feelings shit." She paused a moment glancing towards the ground and somewhat introspectively she continued "I've never really had this chance before."

"Lindsey made things harder before, but that's in the past. What comes tomorrow is a chance to move forward. Move past things we wish we could change from yesterday." Emma said quietly, she had avoided mentioning Lindsey in their talks since the first night. It seemed to Bell that her specter had been right that she could move past what he had done. It just took time. "No matter what happens, you don't have to do anything you don't want to. That's the most important thing to remember. Remember what Daryl told you, 'you decided the pace of what happens. So the next step is up to you.' He said that, and he meant it." And there was another name she had avoided using. Neither of them could know if he made it out or even if they would ever see him again.

"Is that what you want me to do? If he's a live, if we find him?" Bell asked looking Emma. "You want me to make the next move?"

"I don't want you to do anything; well I guess that's not entirely true. I want you to do what's right for you. If you want to make the next move, then that's what you do. You have to make the decision on your own. If you can't do that then," Emma paused and drew what appeared to be a deep breath, not that she needed oxygen before continuing "then maybe you're not ready….." she let the rest of the sentence hang in the air.

The days and nights had all passed in a blur of surviving and searching for any trace of anyone. And stolen maps showed that she slowly got closer and closer to Terminus for better or worse. The closer the end of the line came, the more and more Emma seemed to press on issues from her past. She had begun simply with talking about what Lindsey had done, and why. As the days passed and Emma's agenda moved forward the bigger the spark Bell had felt on that first night after got. Now, so close to the end of this horrible journey it seemed that perhaps the spirit had been right. She could move on.

A shack loomed out of the sun-speckled woods. She could hear a man's huffing as she approached the rise the shack sat on. In one tense moment a figure rushed from behind the shack into the daylight and the sight of him knocked the wind from Bell. Tyresse was outside the shack killing Walkers. She watched stunned a moment while he finished off killing the walkers and then rushed into the shack so quickly he didn't even open the door, he just kicked it down.

Without a thought for anything but to aid a comrade Bell rushed through the trees dropping her bag while she struggled up the steep embankment. As she approached the one room building the sounds of wet thumping on a hard floor. Looking through the door jamb Bell saw Tyresse straddling a body, it really was just a body now, the person it had been had long since passed.

Bell knew rage like that. She had felt as she looked onto the cabin Lindsey had taken them to after the bombing to wait out the military. She had wanted to go in and kill him slowly, the way he killed her. But she had turned her back on the house telling herself he wasn't worth it. Sudden silence descended on the clearing at the end of the road and Tyresse could be heard cooing softly in the shack. 'He must be the one with Judith!' Bell thought joyfully.

"Bell?" his voice sounded as if he couldn't believe his eyes.

Looking up at the man who had lost so much in the last days of the prison Bell smiled as tears fell from her eyes "Tyresse." Without much thought Bell walked up and brushed the hair that had begun to grown down around the baby's face.

"You want to hold her?" Tyresse asked quietly not that he gave her much choice he had already began to shift the baby's weight so Bell could hold what had given her hope and driven her the last month through the woods. "Just don't crush her. We've had a rough day." He continued as Bell clung to the small girl who had brought so much hope and light into their lives.

"Is it just the two of you?" Bell asked, joy and fear in equal amounts colored her words. She would be happy if it was only these two but if they had made it out surely someone else had too. The sunlight seemed to be almost too bright, Bell's eyes were watering; she didn't even notice how quiet Tyresse was as she shift Judith between her hips so that she could wipe her cheeks.

"For right now, yeah," Tyresse said glancing down the road. "Carol left to go to Terminus. They've got Carl and Michonne."

"Is there anyone else there?" Her voice so hopeful that Bell silently cursed herself. If it was just Carol, Tyresse, Carl, Michonne, and Judith they would be enough, but maybe there were more.

"That's all the guy said." Tyresse said with a quick glance over his shoulder into the house.

"Guess we have to wait then." Bell said as she glanced around the area. It seemed safe enough, whatever was going on at Terminus seemed to be attracting the Walkers.

"Who are these people?" Bob asked as they walked through the meat processing plant of Terminus.

"These aren't people," was Rick's response, and Daryl couldn't agree with him more. "No." he said and stopped Glenn from dispatching the fallen cannibalistic members. "Let 'em turn."

As they walked through the processing plant Daryl couldn't help the smile that spread across his face. Sure they were going into facing death again with stolen knives and broken pipes. But anything was better than on your knees with your throat slit. This is what he excelled at, hunting. The rush through the train yard was like every other fight and flight situation they faced. Death at every turn, half a seconded slower and you'd be having a personal conversation with the reaper himself.

More action through the train yard

He had no thought for how they escaped until a twig snapped behind him and Carol stood 10 feet away with the warm welcoming smile he had come to admire. He hadn't been able to contain his joy at her reappearance. Through the winter he had feared her lost with the prison and so much else. And he moved without thinking and engulfed the older woman in his arms. He at least had her back, and he would treasure her.

"There's something you see." Carol's eyes were focused on Rick, but Daryl felt so elated that at least Carol was alive; if these were the only people who made it out he could live with that. As they walked Carol wouldn't answer many questions of where or what she was taking them to. She just kept smiling and saying 'you'll see.' The ever pleased Mother, she smiled and led the group forward. The afternoon sun was sinking to the tree tops showering the world in a golden green light it all felt almost magical as if the world were setting the trauma of the winter right. Reuniting everyone still breathing once again, through tremendous odds.

Carol led them through the forest to a road and as they crested the hill a decrepit building sat shining in the afternoon light with two people standing on the porch between the forest and the road. The one watching the road touched the arm of the other as they stepped out from under the eaves, they were revealed as Tyresse and Bell; and sleeping on his shoulder was Lil' Ass Kicker. So many things happened at once, there were so many cries of joy. Daryl didn't know the precise order things unfolded in. It was all chaotic jubilee. One moment he was smiling shocked with the realization that Bell lived and wondering if he had actually died and gone to heaven. This afternoon was too good to be true. So many people had lived, now they only had to find Beth and everything would be alright. Life could go on.

Everyone greeted each other warmly, it was the most wonderful reunion any of them could have imagined. So many essential people were brought back together. In a quiet moment he found himself on the edge; once again as if nothing had changed and in her own silent way Bell was suddenly by his side as if she had materialized there. Her small hand slid into his larger rougher one. "I wanted to talk to you about us."

"We don't have to…" he trailed off. He wanted things to at least stay the same but she was scared, she always had been. Trust was hard to regain once lost no matter how it was lost. And whatever she would be comfortable with he would be happy with.

"I don't mean that. I just mean that before I," she stopped and glanced around as if looking for words. "Before at the prison I-" his finger pressed against her lips.

"It's okay, I know. At the prison we were safe, but now it's not that simple. I understand Bell." As long as she was alive and near him he would be content.

"No I mean I still. From the prison, I still," It seemed the only thing she could manage to explain it was 'I still' well he could live with that. She sighed suddenly and stomped her foot with frustration, her fists balled at her side. And then she pressed her lips against his. The past days had been so emotionally exhausting to suddenly have the thing he had thought long beyond his grasp, exuberance overcame him and he smiled cupping her face and bring his lips to hers again and again until her laughter kept his lips from hers long enough to ask "What changed?"

"I waited long enough for this." Her eyes shone and smiled at him in a way he had never thought possible. It was as if she had left her demons in locked in the prison. Entwining his fingers with hers, Daryl smiled and for a moment rested his forehead against hers so perfectly content in this moment. As though of one mind they both turned their head to the happily stunned looks of their family, with the exceptions of the women who knew them best. The world seemed to glow, as introductions of the new members were made. More hands to fight the hoard and more eyes to watch the woods were always welcome. It was how they survived.

Whatever came they could face it. And they would. There was always something to look forward to.

AN: Well there you go two in one week. I will be hopefully back to posting one a week after this week, it's been a crazy month.


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